Why is offense at historic low in the 2026 MLB playoffs? Plus more intriguing postseason trends

We're halfway through the 2026 MLB playoffs, and runs have been incredibly tough to come by in October

Oct 11, 2026 at 11:41 am ET • 7 min read

Four teams remain, and something historic is guaranteed to happen this season. Either the Los Angeles Dodgers will become the first National League team to threepeat, or a long World Series drought will end. The Cleveland Guardians haven't won the World Series since 1948. The Milwaukee Brewers (existed since 1970) and Tampa Bay Rays (since 1998) have never won a title.

"This was a difficult year," Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said after his team's ALDS Game 5 win over the Chicago White Sox on Saturday. "For us to be one step away from the World Series, our ultimate goal, this is really exciting."

The Brewers and Dodgers will open their NLCS matchup Sunday night at American Family Field. The Guardians and Rays start their ALCS at Tropicana Field on Monday. Here are our biggest questions for the Championship Series, and here now is a look at three trends we've seen to date in the postseason.

Biggest LCS questions in 2026 MLB playoffs: Will we see best versions of Jacob Misiorowski, Shohei Ohtani?

Dayn Perry

Offense is down. Way down.

Two rounds into the postseason, teams are hitting .208/.291/.334 and averaging 3.46 runs per game. It was a .192/.284/.304 line and 3.06 runs per game during the Division Series. Offense is down about 25% compared to the regular season. Offense always comes down in the postseason, but it is way down this postseason. Much more than usual.

Here are the runs per game numbers:

Runs per MLB game: Regular season vs. playoffs

	Regular season	Postseason	Difference
2022	4.28	3.66	-0.62
2023	4.62	4.10	-0.52
2024	4.39	4.21	-0.18
2025	4.45	4.01	-0.44
2026	4.48	3.46	-1.02

Usually, you can chop about half-a-run off the league average from the regular season to the postseason. This year it's more than a full run with most postseason games having already been played (25 games have been played and at most 21 games remain). If 3.46 runs per game holds, it would be the lowest scoring postseason since the Division Series arrived for good in 1995.

LOWEST SCORING POSTSEASONS SINCE 1995
1. 2026: 3.46 runs per game
2. 2012: 3.49 runs per game
3. 2013: 3.55 runs per game
4. 2001: 3.56 runs per game
5. 1998: 3.62 runs per game

There are a multitude of reasons for this year's drastic decline in offense. Part of it could be/probably is sample-size noise. At the end of the day, it is only 25 games. We're conditioned to think the postseason is more meaningful, and while the results certainly are as far as whether a team advances, it is still baseball, and 25 games spread across 12 days isn't that many.

The teams on the field are a factor, too. By runs per game, only six of the top 11 regular-season offenses reached the postseason. Meanwhile, 10 of the top 12 teams in runs allowed per game reached the postseason (that is, fewest runs allowed per game), and the top four and nine of the top 12 teams in defensive efficiency reach the postseason. It's a run prevention postseason field.

Furthermore, some of the game's best hitters have been a non-factor. Aaron Judge is injured and did not take an at-bat for the New York Yankees. Shohei Ohtani is clearly compromised, physically. Jake Bauers, a top 10 hitter by OPS+ this year, is playing hurt, as was Ronald Acuña Jr. On the other side, the top five and nine of the top 11 pitchers in WAR have pitched this postseason.

Then you have endless pitching matchups that constantly put hitters at a disadvantage. Look at the average fastball velocity in the postseason compared to the regular season. This is almost unfair:

Average MLB fastball velocity: Regular season vs. playoffs

	Regular season	Postseason	Change
2022	93.7 mph	95.3 mph	+1.6 mph
2023	93.9 mph	94.8 mph	+0.9 mph
2024	94.0 mph	95.0 mph	+1.0 mph
2025	94.3 mph	95.8 mph	+1.5 mph
2026	94.6 mph	96.1 mph	+1.5 mph

The average fastball -- average -- is 96.1 mph this postseason. Through 25 games, there have been more 100 mph pitches thrown this postseason (254) than the entire 2008 regular season (211). I can not stress this enough: It has never been harder to hit than it is right now. Pitchers throw so hard and have such nasty stuff, and they all get ideal matchups. It's an unfair fight.

Twenty-five postseason games equals 50 offenses and 42 of the 50 have been held to five runs or fewer, and only five times has a team scored more than seven runs. No team has scored 10 runs in a game yet this postseason. This is just postseason baseball now. Offense goes down every October, and this year it is down more than it has ever been in the Wild Card era.

Home runs are not leading the way

For several years now, home runs have led the way in the postseason. Runs per game go down in the postseason, you can scroll up a few tables to see that, but home runs per game go up. Homers take on added importance in October, and we've seen that this year. José Ramírez's two-run shot in a 2-0 win in Game 5, the Rays won a 1-0 game on a solo homer in the ALDS, etc.

Overall though, home runs are down this postseason, both in terms of homers per game and the percentage of runs scored on home runs. Here are the numbers:

MLB run/HR percentage: Regular season vs. playoffs

	Reg. season HR/9	Post. HR/G	Reg. season runs on HR	Post. run on HR
2022	1.07	1.16	39.9%	47.1%
2023	1.21	1.34	41.1%	49.1%
2024	1.12	1.14	40.8%	47.0%
2025	1.16	1.20	41.1%	45.4%
2026	1.15	0.96	40.5%	41.0%

For all intents and purposes, the same percentage of runs are being scored on homers this postseason as in the regular season. The difference between 40.5% and 41.0% is nothing. The difference was much larger from 2022-25. Home runs per game are down, though. The difference between 1.15 and 0.96 is one homer every five games or so. That's significant.

This is unlikely to change the rest of the postseason. The Dodgers finished seventh in homers during the regular season. The Rays were 22nd, the Guardians were 27th, and the Brewers were 29th. The ALCS matchup guarantees that a team in the bottom 10 in homers will reach the World Series for only the second time in the last 10 years, joining the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks.

One year is not enough to call the decline in home run reliance in the postseason a trend. It could be a one-off. It is happening, though. The "ball go far, team go far" ethos has held true for years now. It still does! The home runs just aren't being hit as often. This also contributes to the low-scoring postseason. Teams aren't putting points on the board with one swing regularly. 

Positionless pitchers

There is positionless basketball in the NBA and positionless hockey in the NHL, where players are assigned a "position" but are free to roam around by design. Positionless play is coming to MLB in that the lines between starter and reliever have never been more blurred. Openers and bullpen games are the norm and a viable strategy now, not a last resort.

Through 25 postseason games, relievers have thrown 232 ⅔ innings compared to 207 innings for starters. That's 52.9% of innings going to guys who come out of the bullpen, and that is not out of the ordinary. Starters have not thrown more innings than relievers in the postseason since 2023. Here are the percentage of innings thrown by relievers the last few years:

Percentage of IP by relievers: Regular season vs. playoffs

	Regular season	Postseason	Difference
2022	41.3%	45.3%	+4.0%
2023	42.0%	48.1%	+6.1%
2024	41.2%	51.9%	+10.7%
2025	41.5%	50.7%	+9.2%
2026	43.1%	52.9%	+9.8%

Reliever usage always increases in the postseason, and this is attributable to two things. One, teams are growing more comfortable with openers and bullpen games in general. They really did used to be a last resort at one point. The manager would get peppered with questions before and after each game about it. Now they're commonplace. They're just a thing teams do.

And two, the postseason schedule. The next off-day is never too far away. There were three off-days in the ALDS this year. Three in a best-of-five! When you know that rest day is coming, you can lean more heavily on your bullpen. The unforgiving regular season schedule rarely allows for that. Teams routinely go two weeks between off-days during the regular season.

The Guardians vs. White Sox series featured 53 pitching changes in five games. That just isn't something you can do in June or July or August. Teams are using the off-day-laden postseason schedule to their advantage, and that's exactly what they should do. Adapt to the schedule and adapt to your personnel, and more often than not, that means going to the bullpen.

It's fair to ask whether this is a good thing for viewers and the overall watchability of the sport. I fully understand and appreciate the opener/bullpen game strategy, but they can turn games into a slog. The game has a hard time settling into a rhythm when there's a mid-inning pitching change and a commercial break every other half-inning, you know?

The four teams still standing all have at least two starting pitchers they trust implicitly. Also, we're now into the best-of-seven round, and Games 3-5 will be played on three consecutive days. That doesn't allow for the same bullpen heavy approach as the Wild Card Series and Division Series. We should see starters carry a larger workload moving forward.

There is no unringing the bell, though. Positionless pitchers -- maybe it's better to call them role-less pitchers? -- are here to stay and they have never been more prevalent than this postseason. The optimized matchups and the fact hitters rarely get those juicy second and third looks at a pitcher contribute to the low-scoring environment in October.