This blog entry will serve as a running summary of our annual regular-season and playoff “fast forward,” using the 2026 Pro In-Season card set for History Maker Baseball!

As detailed in our September CONNECT e-newsletter, here are our final "fast forward" standings...

Working from our final standings and playoff pairings, here are our playoff results (below). The name of the PLAAY gamer who conducted the series is listed in parentheses, followed by their personal comments, where applicable…

Wild Card Round

These series are best-of-three, with all games played at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team…

(#4) San Diego defeats (#5) Chicago (2-1)

(Keith Wibbels) The Padres are movin' on! They won Game One in an epic nail-biting 1-0 win, with Ty France getting the walkoff single in the home 10th. Game Two had the Padres jumping out to a 2-0 first inning lead, and then the Cubs scored five in the second. San Diego made it 5-4 Cubs in the 5th, but the Cubs scored two more in the 7th and won Game Two 7-5. Game Three was the San Diego gun show: six homers for the Padres! Tatis was a monster 4/5 with two HR and 4 RBI's] and ended up cruising to a 10-3 win... Casey Mize pitched for 5 innings and gave up only two hits for the decisive win.

(#6) Philadephia defeats (#3) Atlanta (2-0)

(Kurt Bergland) In a battle of suffocating, shut-down pitching the Phillies swept the Braves by identical 1-0 scores! Here are the two scoresheets from Kurt's series...

(#6) Chicago defeats (#3) Cleveland (2-1)

(Michael Bratta) The Guardians win game one 4-3, take the lead in the eighth, when Catcher Jake Rogers allows his second passed ball. Game two, Chicago wins 3-0, uses four pitchers to get a combined shutout. Guardians' pitcher Gavin Williams strikes out 12 in 7 1/3 of an inning. Deciding game three, Sox are down to their last out, with the bases loaded when Miguel Vargas hits a Grand Slam to win the game (and series) 7-5!

Walks plagued both pitching staffs. Cleveland had trouble on the base paths, having three runners thrown out attempting extra bases and one caught stealing second base. Vargas's HR was a decider die roll! I was afraid to look at the outcome of the roll and had to call my girlfriend in the room to tell me. Once again, thanks for letting me play this. This series is what makes HMB such a great and entertaining game.

(#4) New York defeats (#5) Boston (2-1)

(Cory Highfield) Boston won the opener in 13 innings 4-3, but the Yankees came back to win the last two (3-2, 2-1) to take the series. All three games, one run difference. Here's Cory's series summary…

Divisional Semi-Finals

These series are best-of-five, with the first two games played at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team…

(#4) New York at (#2) Texas

(TBD)

(#6) Chicago at (#1) Tampa Bay

(Michael Bratta)

(#4) San Diego at (#2) Los Angeles

(Keith Wibbels)

(#6) Philadelphia at (#1) Milwaukee