Major League Baseball's best team can't stop pretending to be the underdogs heading into World Series

The American League Championship Series is tied at two games apiece heading into Sunday evening's game five.

After the Tampa Bay Rays offense scuffled against the Cleveland Guardians' pitching staff, they finally broke through in game four thanks to Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda and Richie Palacios.

Not exactly the most famous names in Major League Baseball , sure, but an example of the Rays' depth and ability to create tough matchups for opposing pitchers up and down the lineup.

Game five will pair two of the top ten pitchers in baseball in 2026, by FanGraphs WAR, Drew Rasmussen and Parker Messick.

Again, not the most well-known names, sure, but based on performance, those two pitchers outperformed highly paid, big-name starters like Zack Wheeler, Framber Valdez, Kevin Gausman or Max Fried.

Given the inherent volatility and randomness of postseason baseball, trying to draw permanent or predictive conclusions from small sample size outcomes is ultimately pointless.

But there is one clear pattern that's been obvious for years and become even more apparent in 2026: there are no underdogs in the playoffs.

So why is the best team in baseball still acting like one? WANT TO KNOW HOW TO WIN IN OCTOBER? THE 2026 MILWAUKEE BREWERS ARE PROVIDING THE BLUEPRINT On the other side of the tournament bracket, the Milwaukee Brewers swept the very expensive Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.

The Brewers bullpen, behind Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill, among others, was virtually unhittable.

Well, not necessarily unhittable, but impossible to score runs against.

Those pitchers allowed just two runs in 15.2 innings of relief in the NLCS, both from Uribe.

In 13 innings from Ashby, Hall, Romero and Megill, not one runner who reached base scored.

Not one.

League-wide, the average left on base rate is roughly 75%.