Major League Baseball’s Championship Series officially began on Sunday, October 11th, 2026, and the race to the World Series is now down to four teams. Two best-of-seven series will decide which clubs move on to the Fall Classic, with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays all still standing.
The Milwaukee Brewers arrive as the most eye-catching story of the round. They finished the 2026 regular season with the best record in baseball, then knocked out the San Diego Padres in the NLDS to move within one series of a sixth World Series appearance in the last decade. Their opponent in the National League Championship Series is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who pushed past the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS and now have another chance to turn a strong postseason into something bigger. For readers following the broader title picture, that route to the postseason has already sharpened attention on the latest World Series 2026 odds, with every result changing the picture again.
The AL side has already delivered drama
In the American League Championship Series, the Tampa Bay Rays face the Cleveland Guardians after both teams earned their way through different kinds of pressure. The Rays defeated the New York Yankees in the ALDS, while the Guardians came back from an 0-2 deficit against the Chicago White Sox to keep their season alive. That comeback underlined the central truth of October baseball: once the postseason reaches this stage, form and momentum can change quickly, and a team only needs one strong week to reset the whole picture.
For the Brewers, this is familiar territory. Their last World Series appearance came in 1982, when they lost in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals. Since then, they have reached the Championship Series twice before and fallen short both times. This is their third Championship Series overall, and the size of the opportunity is impossible to miss. After a regular season built around consistency, anything less than a World Series berth will feel like a missed chance.
Four teams, two paths, one prize
The setup is simple now. The NLCS will decide one World Series place, and the ALCS will decide the other. The Dodgers have the pedigree, the Brewers have the best regular-season record, the Rays have already outlasted one heavyweight, and the Guardians have shown they can recover when the pressure rises. Each side of the bracket has its own storyline, but the reward is exactly the same: a place in the World Series.
Elsewhere, the Colorado Rockies remain observers as the postseason moves on, with a fourth consecutive 100-loss season leaving them far from this stage. It is a reminder of how wide the gap can be in baseball, and how rare it is to be one of the final four teams in October. The Championship Series has now made that divide clear, and the next few games will settle which two clubs earn the right to play for the World Series.
For fans looking ahead to the broader spectacle, the postseason remains full of theatre. On one end, the current battle for the World Series continues to build. On another, the sport’s long history is never far away, from moments like George W. Bush throwing strike before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series to the newer stories that define each October. Right now, though, the focus is on the present: four teams, two series, and one goal left on the table.
