Baseball’s compressed Wild Card Series can get as unpredictable as its name suggests. The MLB playoff format was expanded to a best-of-three opening series in 2022. Since then, three wild-card teams charged into the World Series (the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022 and the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks in 2023). It’s hectic by design, with nightly payoffs and heartbreaks that can reorient your personal well-being.

Below, we’ve sorted this year’s Wild Card Series matchups by overall watchability. All four are cool and fascinating in their own ways. It all comes down to a matter of taste and allegiance (and availability, because some of these games start right in the middle of weekday afternoons). Let us know what we got right and wrong, and enjoy the dizzy bat race that is playoff baseball.

All times listed below are ET.

You can stream in-market and nationally televised MLB games on Fubo (Stream Free Now).

4. Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Guardians
Tuesday, 1:08 p.m. on ESPN
Wednesday, 1:08 p.m. on ESPN
Thursday (if necessary), 1:08 p.m. on ESPN

Game 1 probable starters: LHP Tarik Skubal (DET) vs. RHP Gavin Williams (CLE)

Momentum: Are you partial to the 1914 Boston Braves? Do you ride for Rabbit Maranville? If so, this part is going to hurt, and we apologize. On Sunday, the 2025 Cleveland Guardians made the largest division title comeback in MLB’s nearly 150 years of existence, which broke the mark held by those “Miracle” Braves for more than a century. Cleveland was down 15 1/2 games in the AL Central race on July 9, and still needed to make up 11 games on Sept. 5. Just a few weeks ago, the Guardians had marginally better playoff odds than a rock with superglued googly eyes (we named it Brayan Rock-hio). No one in the bracket carries the same feverish momentum.

Animosity: Of course, these Guards now welcome in the very division rival they surpassed in historic fashion. Detroit paced the Central for almost the entire season … only to trip over itself, fall down a flight of stairs coated in aioli, and land on a whoopee cushion in front of its crush. The Tigers still made it in as a wild card, because their first half of 2025 was brilliant. Against the odds, they can now avenge that extended humiliation ritual with two road wins in Cleveland.

National intrigue: This is where the series gets dinged. Detroit has reigning Cy Young winner and top-of-the-top ace Skubal, while Cleveland matches with perennial 30-30 threat José Ramírez. Beyond that, the pure star appeal is limited. The Guardians don’t seem to mind, as they’ve forged an identity from hustle and small ball. They also have the worst on-base percentage of any playoff team ever. The collapse of the Tigers was awkward and arduous, and this lineup is limited beyond Riley Greene (36 homers, but a .195 batting average in September). An early afternoon start is hard for both the crowd and the TV audience. It’s still an awesome matchup with a lot of juice, but one of these series had to be ranked last.

3. San Diego Padres at Chicago Cubs
Tuesday, 3:08 p.m. on ABC
Wednesday, 3:08 p.m. on ABC
Thursday (if necessary), 3:08 p.m. on ABC

Game 1 probable starters: RHP Nick Pivetta (SD) vs. LHP Matthew Boyd (CHC)

Momentum: San Diego notched 90 wins for just the sixth time in 57 Major League campaigns. General manager and ketchup lover A.J. Preller was ultra ambitious at the trade deadline, and the Padres went 38-28 in the second half of the season (with seven Ws in their final eight games). Their Wrigley Field hosts have not won a playoff game since 2017. The Cubs cooled off to a 35-31 second half, but they held a dominant 50-31 home record. No ketchup on a Chicago-style hot dog, of course.

Animosity: There’s not much of a rivalry here. These sides went an even 3-3 against each other this year, with exactly 25 runs apiece.

National intrigue: The Padres are once again seeking their first World Series triumph in franchise history. This is the fourth playoff berth of the Manny Machado-Fernando Tatís Jr. era. They have a shared vivacity that pops on screen, and they’re unafraid of heel turns in hostile environments. San Diego scores high marks here.

Overall, the Cubs had a strong season at the plate. But after the All-Star break, they were 15th in MLB in slugging, 19th in average and 20th in total scoring. Cade Horton’s late injury scratch deflates some of the vibes, too. The clubhouse does still offer a cool blend of established stars (Kyle Tucker won a ring with the Houston Astros, while Dansby Swanson got one with the Atlanta Braves) and in-house ascendants like Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong. October (or, at least, very late September) baseball is back within the Friendly Confines. These Wrigleyville crowds should be packed in and bellowing. A commercial broadcast spot on ABC helps in these rankings, too.

2. Cincinnati Reds at Los Angeles Dodgers
Tuesday, 9:08 p.m. on ESPN
Wednesday, 9:08 p.m. on ESPN
Thursday (if necessary), 9:08 p.m. on ESPN

Game 1 probable starters: RHP Hunter Greene (CIN) vs. LHP Blake Snell (LAD)

Momentum: The Reds squeezed into the third wild-card slot for their first playoff appearance in five years. The Dodgers went on autopilot and took home another NL West banner, their 12th in the last 13 tries. L.A. is ramping up into form, too, as it put up a plus-41 run differential in September and closed out with five consecutive wins.

Animosity: No real beef at a granular level, but there is definitely a philosophical fight playing out. The Dodgers’ front office is aggressive and glamorous, landing three former MVPs (Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) in recent years. The Reds, in the reddest of ink and starkest of contrasts, have become synonymous with stinginess under Bob Castellini’s ownership. Los Angeles employs a dozen players with eight-figure salaries; Cincy has one (Nick Martinez, who was moved to the bullpen and is on an expiring contract).

National intrigue: The Padres-Cubs series may be closer on paper, but the possibility of the defending champs falling to such a modest group is what this compressed first round is about. Improbable wild-card runs are almost customary in the expanded playoff format. Game 1 starter Hunter Greene has the triple-digit gas to pull an upset, Elly De La Cruz has the magnetism to reroute a game, and the super-loaded Dodgers offense has been weirdly inconsistent throughout 2025.

So, if the Reds look good, we can watch a team try to shed a three-decade malady — they have two total playoff wins since their last series victory in 1995. Fittingly, that ’95 win was against the Dodgers. If the title defenders do their thing, well, we still might see a 55-homer MVP slugger pitch innings in October. Every frame of Ohtani in the clutch gets boosted into essential baseball.

Shohei Ohtani sets a new franchise record for homers in a single season with 55! pic.twitter.com/7Zlr7Ruu85

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 28, 2025

1. Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees
Tuesday, 6:08 p.m. on ESPN
Wednesday, 6:08 p.m. on ESPN
Thursday (if necessary), 6:08 p.m. on ESPN

Game 1 probable starters: LHP Garrett Crochet (BOS) vs. LHP Max Fried (NYY)

Momentum: Boston went 36-28 after the break and finished well ahead of expectation after (loudly) trading away franchise fixture Rafael Devers. New York just put together its best full month of the season, an 18-7 September heater punctuated with its ongoing eight-game winning streak. The Yanks go for Nos. 9 and 10 beneath their white frieze. The Sox went 9-4 in this year’s head-to-head series.

Animosity: All of it. This is baseball’s signature rivalry, and the Bronx will be Bronxing with the archrival Red Sox in tow. The 2025 version adds Alex Bregman, former Astros antagonist, to Boston’s core. Few (if any) pairings summon this sport’s romantic notions and dramatic capacities.

National intrigue: All of it! East Coast bias accusations may come in here, and Aaron Judge will promptly swat them 400 feet. Judge is a blockbuster batter, the kind who builds folklore, evokes spirits and looms over eras. His playoff legacy must be refurbished, though, and pressure mounts with each passing year. The Yankees led MLB in pre- and post-All Star home runs, and this week’s expanded audience will dig the big names (Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton) who dot their lineup. Dingers are fun, as are late-inning chaos sequences, which could come from New York’s hyperventilating bullpen. A Game 1 draw of Fried versus Crochet sounds like the lead single for a platinum series. Come on, this is Red Sox-Yankees playoff ball. It got the best of the four time slots, as it deserved to.

Updated MLB playoff odds

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(Photo of Shohei Ohtani and Elly De La Cruz: Luke Hales / Getty Images)