MLB wild card winners and losers star do-nothing Dodgers, flailing Phillies - USA Today

The play-in round is over. The home teams won three of four wild-card series, with the worst team by record the other loser.

So as Major League Baseball’s playoffs get down to business with eight teams remaining, there wasn’t much collateral damage from the made-for-TV best-of-three prelude that shaved a handful of mediocre teams from the field.

Still, some benefited much more from what went down over three games that spanned September into October. And they’ll be that much more aligned for what should be an entertaining quartet of Division Series matchups.

Yeah, even while cooling their heels in scalding SoCal, where an afternoon lid-lifter in their NL Division Series against Atlanta will be hella hot. But they got the better piece of the draw: One of the two teams that could conceivably match their starting pitching depth has been eliminated.

No Cristopher Sánchez, no Zack Wheeler, no Jesus Luzardo. And no Chris Sale for at least the first game or two, as he got the final four outs as the Braves polished off the Philadelphia Phillies in three games.

So it will be mix-and-match Atlanta vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Tyler Glasnow and perhaps Blake Snell. Other than their great World Series escape at Toronto, a best-of-five against the Phillies was the Dodgers’ sketchiest obstacle in their repeat bid.

This time, Philly won’t be a problem. Just a Braves club whose pitching deficiencies should be greatly exposed – all while the No. 1 seed Brewers should have their hands full with a nascent Padres club.

The threepeat odds just got a little bit better.

Before we aggressively dismiss the Braves, a pause to note that after the worst season of his career – a .219 average, a .680 OPS, an 80 adjusted OPS – the hulking third baseman locked it in and saved Atlanta’s season.

His three-run home run with two outs in the eighth inning of Game 1 flipped the game and probably the series – a 3-2 deficit becoming a 5-3 victory. That capped three days of excellent plate appearances in which Riley milked three walks and reached base nearly half the time.

Riley’s presence is crucial for the Braves to create dangerous left-right pockets in their lineup to counteract both the Dodgers’ starters and lefty relievers like Alex Vesia, Tanner Scott, Jack Dreyer and Justin Wrobleski. And it’s just a best-of-five. Some timely thunder from Riley could greatly enhance the Braves’ chances of taking out the champs.

As champagne flew through the air around him after a New York sweep against Boston, the Yankees’ 21-year-old rookie shortstop was asked the most useful advice he received on playoff baseball.

Easy enough. And Lombard was fantastic in his postseason debut, cranking four hits in two nights against the Red Sox and providing a steadying influence in an ever-shifting infield.

These Yankees are different: Almost the entire infield is a platoon situation, from Paul Goldschmidt and Luis García Jr. at first base, to Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario at third and, increasingly, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe at second.

Who’s the rock? A shortstop who debuted on Aug. 4 and equaled Derek Jeter’s 1996 feat with four hits in his first two playoff games.

“I feel like every day, you get more experience, see more pitches, see how these games go,” Lombard told USA TODAY Sports of his playoff indoctrination. “Every game is just another learning experience.”

The next classroom? Tropicana Field and a date with the division champion Rays in the ALDS.

If the White Sox insist on sticking around these playoffs, we’ll definitely have to figure out what their whole deal is. From afar, their two-game dispatching of the Astros looked like a wild mix-and-match pitching scenario that worked to perfection.

Hagen Smith, drafted fifth overall as a starter yet debuting as a reliever, pitched three flawless innings starting Game 1. Grant Taylor, who saved 10 games this season, pitched 2 1/3 innings of two-hit ball to end it. Game 2 saw Sean Burke, as always,  go as hard as he can as long as he can and in this case, that meant eight strikeouts in four innings.

And then it was lefty starter Anthony Kay getting two key outs in relief to earn the win and Erick Fedde absorbing the final two innings in perfect fashion.

Just what are they doing here? Their five-game AL Central intramural Division Series against Cleveland will be a fascinating case study: John Wholestaff vs. Gavin Williams and Parker Messick. Chaos, indeed.

This was bad. Even the one game they took off the Braves featured a Bryce Harper fielding gaffe and an uncharacteristic five walks from Sanchez. The Game 1 blast Duran yielded to Riley gave their downfall a sense of inevitability.

Yet that came far sooner. The worst offensive team in all of baseball in September – by almost every metric – a nonexistent bullpen and a last-week stumble that forced them to burn Zack Wheeler in Game 162 rather than Game 1 of the wild card put them in a hole before they even tipped off at Truist Park.

Bad team? Seems like it. This is the fifth consecutive year the Phillies and this core have reached the playoffs. That’s good. This is the fifth consecutive year they’ve somehow regressed, failing to reach the NLDS for the first time in this run. That’s bad.

Alec Bohm is gone. They still need a right fielder. They still need a bullpen. Alex Cora seems likely to take over for Don Mattingly.

The old core is signed through at least 2030 and as late as 2033. Wholesale changes aren’t possible. Can top prospect Aidan Miller stay healthy and impact 2027?

Lots of questions. And an abundant feeling the good vibes only have left the scene.

So long as Jose Altuve wears No. 27 in Houston, the Spirit of ’17 will stay alive. Yet the dying embers of a franchise that dominated for nearly a decade are fizzling out.

Forget making the playoffs for the ninth time in 10 years, and 10th in 12. This was an 81-81 team that couldn’t wait to fire its general manager before this season was over.

Now, manager Joe Espada could be following Dana Brown out the door, leaving the Astros with a barren farm system, a group of still unfinished young players at the big league level and shortstop Jeremy Peña entering a walk year.

Will owner Jim Crane ever accept a re-tooling? Or will he insist on keeping this going?

Whomever takes over for Brown will be an interesting tell. And how much autonomy they’ll enjoy may depend on how many of Crane’s trusted lieutenants stick around in this remodel.

Either way, the team most everyone seems to enjoy hating looks to be trending the wrong way.

It’s been eight years since the Red Sox won the World Series and in the time since, they have had moderately encouraging seasons and deeply disappointing ones.

And 2026 had two parts of the latter and one part of the former.

In between a slow start that resulted in World Series-winning manager Alex Cora’s firing and an ugly two-game demolition by the Yankees in the wild-card series, the Red Sox went on a stirring, almost memorable summer run.

Yet in total, this year once again reeked of instability, a consistent undercurrent since Boston last held the trophy.

Whatever good vibes summer engendered seemed to dissipate over two nights at Yankee Stadium, after which veterans Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras voiced significant and pointed concerns over the club’s apparently dogmatic hewing to analytic principles.

Boston lost both games when Gray and rookie lefty Payton Tolle were yanked in the fifth inning of 1-0 games. Disaster followed both nights and the Red Sox were bounced before October could arrive.

So what now? Gray can opt out of his option year. Roman Anthony remains a medical mystery, team and player frustrated by a vexing injury. Permanent manager Chad Tracy can go to school on what worked and didn’t from late April through September.

And where do the Red Sox really land in the AL East pantheon? They look eons behind the Yankees, the Blue Jays should be recovered from a hangover year and the Rays were nearly a dozen games better than them.

A terrible AL provided decent cover for flawed teams. The wild-card round seemed to portend that 2027 could bring even more exposure to the Red Sox.