The 2025 MLB postseason; the good, the bad and the disappointing.
- Leo Aviña
- 13 minutes ago
- 12 min read
Disclaimer: This article is purely informational and unbiased in all aspects. I am a neutral fan and do not have a particular team who I support! Also I am well aware that the Postseason was 2 months ago, but this article was in editorial purgatory.
The 2025 World Series is in the books and oh boy, this postseason was an absolute thriller. The World Series featured a modern dynasty and the hottest team of the regular season (what more could you want!?). We saw Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Ernie Clement all have historic, record-breaking playoff performances. And with big names like Pete Alonso, Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette and Alex Bregman being available as free agents this offseason, it's safe to say that baseball is at an all-time high: some might even call it a Golden Age. However, off the top of my head, I can think of 6 people who just can’t get behind baseball and think it's “a slow boring sport.” So, to all the uncultured scoundrels of society who are grouches about America’s pastime and to the people who want to get into baseball, I dedicate this article to you.
In this article, I’ll explain how the new postseason format works and afterwards cover each team’s postseason story line. Without further ado, let’s get into it!
The Format
The current postseason format began for the 2022 postseason. Since then, it has been the standard format for all postseasons to follow. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the MLB divisions and leagues, allow me to briefly explain. The MLB consists of 30 ball clubs split into two leagues with 15 teams in each: the National League and the American League. From there, each league is split up into 5-team divisions based on geography and location. In each league, there are East, West and Central divisions, making for a total of 6 divisions. For a team to “win their division,” they must have the best record out of the 5 teams in the 162 game regular season.
The Postseason consists of the two best division winners in each league getting a bye to the Divisional Series. For example, the Mariners and Blue Jays had the best records in the American League and the Phillies and Brewers in the National League. They all got byes to the ALDS or the NLDS, respectively. Then, the 4 teams with the next best record in each league will duke it out in the Wild Card Series. This year in the National League, the Dodgers, Reds, Cubs, and Padres all played in the Wildcard. While on the American League side, the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers and Guardians played. The winners of the Wild Card Series will advance to play the teams who got byes in the Divisional series. The Divisional Series winners move on to play each other in the Championship Series, aka “The Pennant.” Finally, the Pennant winners in each league will play each other in the World Series. The Wild Card series are 3 games a piece, the Divisional Series are 5 games, and both the Championship Series as well as World Series are 7 games.
AL Wild Card
The Boston Red Sox 1-2 Series Loss to NYY
This is the first postseason game we’ve seen with this historic rivalry since the 2021 Wildcard, but wow, did it live up to its wait. It was a travesty that only one team could move on in this series and with how evenly these teams were matched, it was going to be a game of which manager could out-crap the bed the other. Least to say, it was definitely Alex Cora throwing Garett Crochet as well as Aroldis Chapman at everything and seeing if it stuck. Boston took game one and New York rallied for game two and then for game 3… Cam Schlittler happened. The former Sox fan steamrolled through the Boston hitting rotation like prime Mariano Rivera, delivering 8 shutout innings with 12 strikeouts. Despite losing the series, the future looks bright for Boston, all they seem to need is a couple more key pieces, and I’d say they’d easily be a pennant contender (despite the Devers fiasco).
The Cleveland Guardians 1-2 Series Loss to DET
I swear, baseball is sometimes more poetic than actual poetry. Going into August, the Guardians were 12 and a half games behind the Tigers for the division and at their lowest point of the season, had a less than a one percent chance of making the postseason. However, by September 25th, Cleveland had completed what is widely considered one of the greatest divisional comebacks in baseball history. They went 5-1 against Detroit in September, with complete domination. They did literally everything in their power to make it in, just to be eliminated by who else, but Motown. Cleveland’s hitting was the death of them with an abysmal .197 batting average and an OPS barely over 500. Detroit wasn’t much better either, but with the improbable might of Tarik Skubal, the Tigers managed to muster up the last laugh.
NL Wild Card
The Cincinnati Reds 0-2 Series Loss to LAD
The self-proclaimed “Cockroaches” of baseball made it to the Postseason by sheer accident. The Reds put up their usual 80 win season without a thought of playoff aspirations. Meanwhile, up in Queens, the Mets decided to take the 2nd largest payroll in baseball and promptly did anything else with it than consistently win baseball games. And so by the power of doing absolutely nothing, the Reds had made it to their first postseason in 12 years (well, they did technically make the 2020 postseason, but that was the “Mickey Mouse Year”, we don’t count that one). But the moment it was announced that they would play the Dodgers, everyone was preparing their eulogies.
As soon as this series began and the Reds faced off against an actual playoff-ready team, it became very apparent that they were never supposed to make it, at all…. Hunter Greene, who was by far one of the best starting pitchers this year, pitched and looked like a wet match stick on the mound. The bats were not any better; use literally any synonym for the words quiet or distraught and that would perfectly encapsulate the 2025 postseason Reds (not even Terry Francona could save this team). They got rocked in game 1 by the Dodger bats and when you're starting Zach Littell in game 2, you might as well pack it up and book your flights back to Ohio. But hey, at least they gave us a chance to laugh at the Mets.
The San Diego Padres 1-2 Series Loss to CHC
The Padres’ motto since 2022 has been “Beat LA”, but this year they didn’t even make it close (Peter Seidler just rolled over in his grave). They went all in with a cavalcade of excellent hitting plus arguably one of the best bullpens in the league just to lose to a Cubs team without their best starters. This is a great example of how a window starts to close; since that historic divisional series win over the Dodgers in 2022, the Padres could never reclaim any major success in baseball's grandest stage. That same postseason, they got absolutely obliterated by the Phillies in the Championship series. In 2023 they didn’t even make the playoffs, in 2024 the Dodgers got their revenge in a 5 game thriller and in 2025, they continued to dress like LA, but their imposter syndrome consistently bites them in the back every year.
Starting Yu Darvish in game 3, Tatis getting cold at the plate, letting Micheal King only pitch a single inning and the umps turning the Cubs defense elite were some of the many mishaps of this series for the friars. Coupled with the Xander Bogaerts deal looking worse and worse every year, free agents like Dylan Cease on the market and scaring Mike Schlidt away from being their manager leads me to believe that there’s a good chance the Padres have hit their peak.
AL Divisional Series
The New York Yankees 1-3 Series Loss to TOR
This series really was not all that competitive and completely exposed how flawed the Yanks truly are. It seemed every single player in the hitting rotation was swinging for the fences, coupled that with the combined 9 ERA the pitching put up, and you’ve got a recipe for a dominant Canadian W…. eh? I really didn’t have a lot to say aboot this series because the Jays were simply the better team and it was not remotely close.
The Detroit Tigers 2-3 Series Loss to SEA
Even though the Tigers had a God awful September, they managed to hang on long enough to make a playoff berth. But some things still seem to never change because the bats in this series were colder than Jack Frost (just like the good old days). However, these two ballclubs are not all that different. Unlike the Tigers however, the Mariners finally built a competent hitting rotation this season, and the Tigers have Kerry Karpenter plus 8 sleeping kittens. Tarik Skubal was wheeling and dealing all series, but the offense completely squandered all their opportunities until it was too late.
This was especially the case in game 5, which ran into the BOTTOM OF THE 15TH until Jorge Polanco decided he wanted to go to bed and hit a walk-off single. But at least the Tigers can say they had the strangest season and a chronically ill addiction to terrible hitting.
NL Divisional Series
The Philadelphia Phillies 1-3 Series Loss to LAD
There is pain, and then there is the 2025 postseason Phillies. These playoffs were supposed to be the last dance for an overall aging team with several big name free agents who have a good chance to not resign. Instead, we got the “Phitans” finding increasingly more painful ways to lose baseball games. Several times during this series, the Dodgers fully exposed their achilles but the Phillies somehow managed to destroy themselves. In game one, a bullpen botch fronted by David Robertson led to a 3 run-shot by Teoscar Hernandez. In game 2, Nick Castellanos connects with a two run double and the Phillies management decided on the genius decision to have the next batter, Bryson Stott, attempt a sacrifice bunt with Castellanos (A BELOW AVERAGE BASE RUNNER) still on base… The obvious happened and the next three batters did basically nothing, handing the Dodgers the win.
In game 3, the “Phitans” offense woke up…. Or should I say Kyle Schwaber woke up because he teed off with two monster shots off of Clayton Kershaw and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But then game 4 happened … Oh God game 4… For context, in the bottom of the 11th with the game on the line relief pitcher Orion Kerkering delivered a 96 mile per hour sinker to center fielder Andy Pages, Pages shot the ball up the mound, Kekering found the ball but instead of getting the easy out at first, he panicked, and made a terrible throw to home plate, costing the Phillies their season… That man is in a world of pain . This is every ball player's worst nightmare, so to Phillies fans and especially Kekering, I am so sorry…
The Chicago Cubs 2-3 Series Loss to MIL
Yeah… so remember in the Padres section when I said the Cubs were missing their best starters? Yeaaaah sooooo, that kinda came back to bite them faster than a raccoon in a trash can in a Taco Bell dumpster. The Cubs pitching staff was looking like something fresh out of a fever dream. Justin Steele running on fumes, Ben Brown a sudden home run distributor program, and Jordan Wicks acting like he'd rather be anywhere else than facing Milwaukee in October. The offense wasn't totally dead… but only in the same way a zombie isn't technically alive. Christopher Morel and Seiya Suzuki did their best to drag this team forward while Pete Crow-Armstrong seemed to be auditioning for a "lost orphan" role at the plate. And yet somehow, Chicago actually managed to go up 2-1 in the series! Hope flickered… right until Craig Counsell remembered "Wait, didn’t I used to manage these guys?" and decided to personally exorcise his old franchise like a man possessed.
Game 4 was a meltdown in slow motion. A two-run lead evaporated the moment the Cubs bullpen trotted out, and by the time Adbert Alzolay entered, Brewers fans were already chanting "thank you, Counsell!" like some twisted church hymn. Game 5? Don't even ask. The Cubs had their postseason hopes sitting nicely on a silver platter, and then Milwaukee's pitching staff-most notably Freddy Peralta and Devin Williams-took that platter and smashed it to pieces. Offensively, Chicago looked allergic to clutch hitting-bases loaded? Strikeout. Runners on third with no outs? Sacrifice pop-up. It was performance art in collapse form. At the end of the day, the Brewers were just the better, deeper team, and the Cubs found out the hard way that vibes alone can't win October baseball. Still, at least Cubs fans can sleep easy knowing they didn't get swept by a team with literal cheese on their heads… small victories Cubs fans, keep your chins up.
The Seattle Mariners 3-4 Series Loss to TOR
This ALCS felt less like a baseball series and more like two franchises going against each other for World Records of who can reach emotional damage quicker. The Mariners came in with the best rotation they've had in decades and immediately treated run support like it was optional, stranding enough runners in scoring position to populate a small city. Toronto, on the other hand, alternated between looking like an unstoppable juggernaut in Games 2 and 6 and then morphing into the 1979, 109 loss Blue Jays every time the vibes got too positive.
The Jays' formula was simple: mash early, hold on for dear life late, and pray the bullpen didn't spontaneously combust into a raging inferno. Seattle did everything in its power to keep the door open including defensive miscues, late-inning bullpen leaks, and an offense that treated anything beyond a solo home run like the Holy Grail. It felt inevitable by Game 7: the Mariners would once again flirt with greatness and then ghost it, while the Jays (behind a suddenly locked-in rotation and just enough clutch hitting) were stumbling into their first pennant since 1993 with all the grace of someone tripping over the finish line. The result wasn't so much "Toronto dominance" as it was "Seattle refusing to cash in on the 47 chances the universe handed them."
The Milwaukee Brewers 0-4 Loss to LAD
The Brewers came into the NLCS high off their series win over the Cubs and were promptly reminded what happens when a fun little Central team runs into a payroll Death Star. Game 1 set the tone: Blake Snell turned Milwaukee's lineup into a modern art piece of strikeouts and weak contact, and the Dodgers' offense did just enough to make it feel like the Brewers were climbing a greased wall for nine innings. From there, it only got uglier. Every time Milwaukee thought it had a foothold; a solo shot here, a rally brewing there, the Dodgers' bullpen came in, slammed the door, double-locked it, and threw away the key (That was first time that sentence was ever uttered by a human because the Dodgers bullpen was hot garbage this year). Shohei Ohtani turning the clincher into a personal highlight reel with nuclear home runs and dominant innings on the mound was just cruel, like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. By Game 4, the Brewers weren't just losing; they looked spiritually broken, with at-bats screaming "please let it end" before the pitch even left the pitcher's hand. This wasn't some competitive back-and-forth so much as Milwaukee being politely escorted out of the postseason by a team that operates on a completely different financial and talent plane.
The Toronto Blue Jays Series Loss to LAD
This World Series is going to haunt the Blue Jays for decades. For most of the seven games, they looked like the better team: jumping on Dodgers pitching early, stringing together rallies, and finally giving their long-suffering fanbase a reason to believe this was the year the 1993 ghosts would finally be exorcised. Time and time again, Toronto handed multi-run leads to a bullpen that proceeded to turn the late innings into a live-fire stress test, choking games they had no business losing and turning comfortable wins into coin flips. The Jays' lineup did its part, their rotation mostly held serve, but every high-leverage moment seemed designed to expose their soft underbelly: one misplaced pitch here, one botched matchup there, and suddenly a dream run became the most cursed "what if?" in franchise history.
The Los Angeles Dodgers
On the other side, the Dodgers were like a horror movie villain: never really gone, no matter how many times Toronto thought they'd finally killed them off. Shohei Ohtani got on base at a historic clip and delivered the kind of two-way superstardom usually reserved for video games. Meanwhile, Yoshinobu Yamamoto morphed into a cold-blooded October monster, especially in the biggest swing games of the series. Even when the Dodgers' offense disappeared for stretches and they looked weirdly mortal, their depth, experience, and bullpen resilience (somehow) kept dragging them back into games, setting the stage for late-inning daggers and that brutal extra-innings Game 7 winner that turned a tight series into the coronation of a modern dynasty.
Conclusion
In the end, this World Series wasn't just "Dodgers beat Blue Jays"; it was a character study in how a seasoned juggernaut survives and how a talented, star-crossed challenger unravels at the worst times. Toronto proved it can stand toe-to-toe against the sport's biggest machine, but until they fix the bullpen meltdowns and late-game decision-making, they'll remain the team that almost toppled a dynasty… while the Dodgers walk away with another banner and that deeply annoying habit of being one swing away from ripping someone's heart out.
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