2026 MLB playoff schedule: Dates set for full postseason bracket, including World Series start
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- MLB released the 2026 postseason schedule on Monday afternoon, more than a month before the regular season concludes, with the Wild Card Series tipping off Tuesday, Sept. 29 across four best-of-three matchups
- Wild Card Series play wraps up no later than Thursday, Oct. 1, feeding directly into the Division Series starting Saturday, Oct. 3
- League Championship Series action begins no earlier than Sunday, Oct. 11
- World Series Game 1 is set for Friday, Oct. 23, with a potential Game 7 landing on Saturday, Oct. 31 — Halloween
- Regular season play concludes Sunday, Sept. 27, giving teams a roughly five-week runway from schedule release to postseason tip-off
- MLB's expanded postseason eliminates tiebreaker games entirely, resolving all deadlocks mathematically with head-to-head record as the first tiebreaker
Why it matters: The Halloween Game 7 possibility is an immediate hook for fans and broadcasters. The elimination of tiebreakers also changes September math — with no Game 163, every late-season head-to-head result can now decide a playoff spot outright, raising the stakes of the final two weeks.
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