4 games. 4 potential clinches. Here's everything to know

It took the Padres hanging on for dear life, but thanks to their NLDS Game 3 win over the Brewers to keep their season alive … we have one last day with four baseball games in 2026.

That’s today. And there’s so much on the line. Between the two Game 3s in the ALDS and two Game 4s in the NLDS, that’s four postseason games, end to end, each of them with one team facing elimination and the other trying to punch a ticket to the League Championship Series.

Here is one big question for each of Wednesday’s four crucial games.

ALDS Game 3: Guardians at White Sox (CWS ahead, 2-0)
4 p.m. ET, TBS/truTV/UniMas/HBO Max
SP: Daniel Espino (CLE) vs. Sean Newcomb (CWS)

Can the White Sox keep the good times rolling, at home?

Before this year, the White Sox had made the playoffs three times since winning the World Series in 2005, hosting four postseason games over that span. None of them felt that great. In both the 2008 ALDS against the Rays and 2021 ALDS against the Astros, they came home already down 2-0. In both cases, they won one game, then were eliminated in Game 4. (Their three postseason games in 2020 were in an empty Oakland Coliseum.)

So you could make the argument that the last time the environment at the ballpark now known as Rate Field was as raucous and joyous as it will be on Wednesday afternoon was Games 1 and 2 of the 2005 World Series. (Game 1 was the one Pope Leo XIV attended, 20 years before he became the Pope.) It has been a while.

This White Sox postseason has all taken place away from Chicago, which makes it all the more impressive that this group of young players has stomped its way through four straight victories, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Now they finally get to play at home … with a chance to reach the ALCS for the fourth time in the history of the franchise. It would be their first postseason series-clinching victory at home in, get this, 120 years. So yeah, it’s probably going to be a little loud out there.

NLDS Game 4: Dodgers at Braves (LAD ahead 2-1)
6 p.m. ET, FS1/FOX One
SP: Tyler Glasnow (LAD) vs. Tyler Mahle (ATL)

Will the Dodgers keep switching things up?

Dave Roberts has been managing postseason baseball for so long that he tied Tony La Russa for second on the all-time playoff wins list in that NLDS Game 3, and he’s now only 13 behind Joe Torre for the top spot. Roberts knows how to approach these series and which games are the most pivotal. So when he said before Game 3, “winning this one is crucial,” you knew he’d back it up. There was obvious urgency for him on Tuesday. Roberts moved the struggling Shohei Ohtani to fifth in the lineup (the lowest spot he had started at in six years), and he put Kiké Hernández and (the now injured) Miguel Rojas in the starting lineup.

Most intriguingly, he turned to Edwin Díaz in the ninth inning, despite the fact that Díaz was a mess for most of his first season with the Dodgers and only recorded three saves after April 7. Tuesday’s was his first in nearly two months. And yet … it all worked out.

It also speaks to the feel of a manager who knows when to hit the gas hard. Roberts has said Ohtani won’t hit fifth again, but it will be fascinating to see if he treats Game 4 with that same urgency. Oh, also, is Díaz just the closer again now?

ALDS Game 3: Rays at Yankees (TB ahead, 2-0)
8 p.m. ET, TBS/truTV/UniMas/HBO Max
SP: Nick Martinez (TB) vs. Max Fried (NYY)

Will the Yankees put up a fight?

After an electrifying AL Wild Card Series sweep of the Red Sox, it legitimately felt like this generation of young Yankees stars was about to lift the franchise into a new era quicker than anyone anticipated -- whether Aaron Judge was a part of it or not. But after two miserable games at Tropicana Field, in which the Yankees managed only two runs and five hits, culminating in a nightmarish four-error performance in Game 2, the same old doubts have returned -- with a vengeance. Are there fatal flaws in how this team is constructed? Can it win without Judge? Why does this defense turn all thumbs in the postseason?

The Yankees need something to go right for them, hopefully early in Game 3, to support Fried. Yankee Stadium can roar, but no stadium is more deathly silent when things aren’t going well. The Yankees just need to get back to normal baseball things: Hit the ball and field the ball. Simple, right? One hopes so. Or it’s going to be a long offseason full of uncomfortable questions in the Bronx. Again.

Brewers at Padres (MIL ahead 2-1)
10 p.m. ET, FS1/FOX One
SP: TBA (MIL) vs. Walker Buehler (SD)

C’mon, doesn’t this series have to go the distance?

You are forgiven if it feels like this is baseball’s first nine-game Division Series: So much has happened that it seems unbelievable how much they’ve packed into three games. These were baseball’s two best teams in September, which is to say they were both peaking at the exact right time, and it has absolutely felt that way in these first three games.

Each was decided by one run. We’ve had a comically absurd number of huge clutch hits, we’ve had some mind-blowing endings, and we’ve had some of the loudest, most consistently vibrating crowds of this (and maybe any) postseason. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you’ve got two of the five franchises who have never won a World Series, with fanbases who clearly believe this may be the year.

When you look at how the pitching might line up, it’s tempting to say it’s all hands on deck, but that was the case in Game 3 as well: Both teams are pulling out all the stops. And why wouldn’t they? Every single pitch of this series has been fraught with import, tension and intensity. It’s both exhausting and electrifying to watch, for every single second. Don’t these teams have to give us two more? (Even if the Brewers surely would like to avoid that.) Is there any way we can have three more? Five? Eight? With any luck, this series will never end.