The 2026 MLB postseason will continue Wednesday with the four Game 2s of the best-of-three Wild Card Series. Tuesday's action left four teams -- Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres -- one win away from the Division Series. On the other side of things, four teams are one loss away from going home for the offseason: Philadelphia Phillies, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs.
Since this postseason format was adopted in 2022, only once in 16 tries has the Game 1 loser come back to win the Wild Card Series. That was last year's Yankees over the Red Sox, thanks largely to Cam Schlittler's sensational Game 3 performance. On only four other occasions did the Game 1 loser force a Game 3.
To state the obvious, winning Game 1 is an enormous advantage. History is not on the side of the Phillies, Astros, Red Sox and Cubs, but that's why they play the games. Here are the four Game 1 losers ranked in order of how likely we think they are to buck history and come back to win the Wild Card Series.
The Cubs got shellacked in Game 1, and thanks to Michael King's ace-grade effort, the Padres didn't have to dip too deeply into their abundant reserves of excellent high-leverage relievers. As well, Game 2 starter Nick Pivetta has been lights-out for the Padres since returning from elbow woes. All that said, the Cubs are far from dead and buried.
Broadly speaking, it's reasonable to argue the Cubs are the better team in this series. Yes, the Padres finished a pair of games ahead of them in the standings. Look a bit more deeply, though, and you'll find the Cubs during the regular season outscored the opposition by an impressive 147 runs -- the third-best run differential in all of MLB.
The Padres, meantime, outscored their opponents by a much more modest 41 runs. As well, the Cubs authored that far superior run differential against a tougher schedule, as measured by opponents' average winning percentage. The Cubs are, of course, driven by their offense, which led the majors in OPS during the regular season.
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