Whew! What a first day of playoff baseball that was on Tuesday. We had a clutch comeback in Georgia, a Pope-endorsed White Sox win in Houston, two Massachusetts natives dominating the Red Sox in the Bronx and a Michael King no-hit bid in San Diego.
Good news: We get to do it all again today.
We’ve got four more games, and each of them is an elimination game in this best-of-three format. Will we see four more games on Thursday? It depends how these four key questions are answered.
Phillies at Braves
2 p.m. ET, Peacock/NBC
SP: Cristopher Sánchez (PHI) vs. Tyler Mahle (ATL)
Did the Braves just withstand the Phillies’ best shot?
The hope for the Phillies was that, with their whew! victory on the season’s final day, they’d be able to reset after a miserable week and essentially start over, fully focused on the only thing that matters to a veteran team like this: the postseason. And for 7 1/2 innings in Game 1, they pulled it off, getting timely hitting and some inventive (and slightly out-of-character) bullpen usage from interim manager Don Mattingly. The Truist Park crowd looked and sounded legitimately shook. Mattingly’s decision to call on star closer Jhoan Duran in the seventh inning against the Braves’ best hitters made sense, and you could even argue for the utility of keeping him out for the eighth -- this is a best-of-three series after all, every game is very important. But with one extremely misplaced fastball to Austin Riley in the bottom of the eighth, this whole series turned upside down.
White Sox at Astros
5 p.m. ET, Peacock/NBCSN
SP: Sean Burke (CWS) vs. Hunter Brown (HOU)
Can Brown give the home fans something to cheer?
Here’s something that’s hard to believe but true: The Astros lost their eighth consecutive postseason home game on Tuesday, going back to Game 2 of the 2023 ALDS. Don’t forget: This is a team that won a World Series four years ago, their second in the past 10 years. But it’s also worth remembering that this Astros team isn’t the Astros teams we’ve grown used to seeing. They’re now four games under .500 at Daikin Park for the season. (And, ahem, one game under .500 anywhere for the season.) All the reasons the Astros have struggled this year were apparent in Game 1: They were short on pitching and they couldn’t put together much offense outside Yordan Alvarez.
There is some hope in Game 2, though. That starts with Brown. Last year’s third-place AL Cy Young Award finisher missed more than two months with a right shoulder strain early this season and was uneven after his return. But he had a 2.47 ERA over his final eight starts, three of which featured double-digit strikeouts. He also has been excellent against the White Sox this year, going 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA in two starts. Considering the Astros used eight pitchers Tuesday, including closer Josh Hader, they’re going to need Brown to carry them -- and he just might.
Red Sox at Yankees
8 p.m. ET, NBC/Peacock
SP: Sonny Gray (BOS) vs. Max Fried (NYY)
Can the Sox end their month-long slump, against THIS pitching staff?
For all the talk of the Phillies’ September struggles offensively, the Red Sox were in even worse shape, scoring an MLB-low 71 runs for the month, or 18 fewer than the 29th-place Phils. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, it is still September. Cam Schlittler continued his dominance over them in Game 1 -- that ERA in six starts against Boston is now all the way down to 0.47 -- but the Red Sox weren’t any better against relievers Paul Blackburn and John Schreiber. The Yankees didn’t even have to deploy their highest-leverage bullpen arms, keeping them fresh for Game 2.
While Fried hasn’t been as great as Schlittler against them, he’s been pretty close, going 4-1 with a 1.93 ERA in seven career starts. Though you don’t have to be Schlittler or Fried to shut down the Red Sox right now. You know all that talk about the Yankees needing Aaron Judge? It turns out that they don’t need him that much if the opponent doesn’t score. The Red Sox are running out of time to get the bats going.
Cubs at Padres
10 p.m. ET, Peacock/NBCSN
SP: Kevin Gausman (CHC) vs. Nick Pivetta (SD)
This isn’t going to be how PCA’s historic season ends … is it?
The last time someone not named Aaron Judge had a season with a FanGraphs WAR higher than Pete Crow-Armstrong’s 10.6 this year was 2004, when Barry Bonds put up an 11.5 (with a .609 OBP. .609!). What PCA did in 2026 is going to go down as one of the best seasons this century, and one of the best seasons, if not the best season, in Cubs history. It was incredible.
It is also nine innings away from being over. And not just that: It’s nine innings away from another quiet playoff exit, something that may start to feel like part of PCA’s permanent record. After an 0-for-3 night (with a walk) in Game 1 -- including two strikeouts that had him growling at third-base umpire Bill Miller over check-swing calls -- he is 5-for-30 in his postseason career, including 0-for-his-last-11. Obviously, those numbers aren’t reflective of the year that PCA has had, or the player he is. But if he and the Cubs don’t turn it around on Wednesday, he’s going to have a long autumn and winter to try to remind himself of that.