MLB Championship Series 2026: Where to Book, City by City

The short answer

The bracket is down to two teams and two cities. Milwaukee has the National League pennant, won on October 15 with a 6-4 Game 4 at Dodger Stadium that completed a 4-0 sweep: Shohei Ohtani put Los Angeles up 4-0 with a three-run homer in the second, Jake Bauers doubled in two in the fourth, the Brewers tied it in the fifth on walks and stolen bases, and Garrett Mitchell homered in the sixth. It is the franchise’s first National League pennant and its first World Series since 1982, when Milwaukee played in the American League. Tampa Bay has the American League pennant, won in six. Cleveland won Game 1 7-3 at Tropicana Field on October 12, Tampa Bay took Game 2 3-1 on the 13th on three unearned fourth-inning runs behind six scoreless from Freddy Peralta, and Cleveland won Game 3 at home 3-2 in a 1 p.m. start on October 15 on Petey Halpin’s go-ahead two-run homer, per ESPN’s box scores and the Boston Globe. Then Game 4 was rained out on Friday, October 16 before a pitch was thrown, the first ALCS postponement since 2019 per wire coverage of the night. MLB renumbered instead of pushing the series back a day, Game 4 was replayed on Saturday the 17th at 8 p.m. ET, and the Rays won it 7-3. They won Game 5 on Sunday the 18th too, 3-1, a run in each of the first three innings and seven innings from Drew Rasmussen, per ESPN’s box score. Then they finished it at home. ALCS Game 6 at Tropicana Field on Monday, October 19 went 7-3 Rays: Richie Palacios doubled in two in the second, Junior Caminero’s two-run homer in the seventh made it 5-1, Cleveland got two back in the eighth, and Yandy Díaz answered with a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning, per Yahoo Sports’ game story. Seven hits each, no errors, 30,230 in the building, per MLB’s box score. Tampa Bay wins the pennant 4-2, and the World Series is Brewers against Rays.

That closes the map, and the result closed the Series. Milwaukee won the World Series 4-1: Games 1 and 2 at home on October 23 and 24, 3-2 and 5-4, Game 3 at Tropicana Field on the 26th, 10-1, a 4-3 loss there in 12 innings on the 27th, and the 4-1 clincher there on Wednesday, October 28. The Games 6 and 7 posted for Milwaukee on the 30th and 31st were not played, so no city on this page has a baseball night left. Cleveland is out, so the October 26 to 28 hold this page carried for it is dead and the Tuesday, October 20 room in St. Petersburg had no game on it. Los Angeles has been finished since the 15th. This page was written on October 11 and rebuilt on the 15th after the first pennant, the 16th after the rain, the 17th after ALCS Game 4, the 18th after ALCS Game 5, the 19th after the second pennant, the 23rd after World Series Game 1, the 26th after World Series Game 3, and twice on the 28th, after World Series Game 4 and again after Game 5 ended it.

Cleveland got there the hard way, and it reset the map

Saturday night in Cleveland did the one thing this page had been waiting on. The Guardians beat the White Sox 2-0 at Progressive Field to win the Division Series 3-2, after dropping the first two games at home. José Ramírez’s two-run homer in the fourth was the whole offense. Gavin Williams struck out 12 across 5 2/3 shutout innings, and the Cleveland staff finished with 21 strikeouts, which ESPN and CBS Sports both note is the most anyone has ever thrown in a winner-take-all game. An 85-77 team that was 61-66 in August got within two wins of a pennant, and it finished two wins short, on October 19.

So Chicago is out, and with it the last live hotel question on the South Side. The Cubs went out in the Wild Card round, the White Sox went out on the road, and Rate Field is a 2027 read. If you are still holding a South Loop room for an October ALCS date, that room has no game attached to it and the cancellation window probably closed days ago. Call the property instead of using the web form.

Here is the bracket as it finished, with every posted clock. All times ET.

An asterisk means if necessary. TBS carried the American League round to the end.

The World Series grid has clocks and both parks now, and they are the easiest ones to carry. Games 1 and 2 are October 23 and 24 at American Family Field, Games 3 through 5 were October 26, 27 and 28 at Tropicana Field, and Games 6 and 7 were posted for October 30 and 31 back in Milwaukee and never played. MLB posted the times on Friday, October 16, and made all seven 8 p.m. ET on FOX. In Milwaukee that was 7 p.m. One hour, every game, nothing to re-check. It also handed you a test that did not exist before that Friday: a ticket marketplace showing anything but 8 p.m. ET for a Series game was showing you its own placeholder.

Two structural things fall out of that grid, and neither one appears on a schedule page.

The championship round is 2-3-2, not the 2-2-1 the Division Series used, and so is the World Series. That means the middle games are drawn as consecutive nights in one city: October 15, 16 and 17 in Cleveland for the ALCS, which the rain turned into the 15th, 17th and 18th, and October 26, 27 and 28 in St. Petersburg for the Series. Both middle legs got played in full, Cleveland’s three and the Trop’s three, so the one-stay-covers-it argument held both times. It also means the higher seed’s own fans get a four-day gap between Game 2 at home and Game 6 at home, which is why Milwaukee faced the two-trips-or-one-long-one question for the Series, until the Series ended in five and the second trip never came, and St. Petersburg faced it for the ALCS.

The second thing is the staggering, and this is the part that actually moved. Four dates carried a game in both leagues: October 12, 15, 16 and 19. On each one the networks pushed the two first pitches apart, which is why Game 2 in Milwaukee was a 5 p.m. ET start against an 8 p.m. opener in St. Petersburg, and why October 16 was originally drawn as a 6 p.m. Cleveland game against a 9 p.m. Los Angeles one.

Two of the posted ALCS clocks carried published conditions, which almost nobody mentions and which is the reason this page tracks them. Game 4 in Cleveland was to move from 6 p.m. to 8 if the National League series ended in a sweep. Game 6 in St. Petersburg was to move from 5 p.m. to 8 if the NLCS never reached a seventh game. Both conditions keyed off the same thing: whether there was still a National League game to stagger against. On October 15 Milwaukee swept, both conditions fired at once, and the American League inherited the primetime window for the rest of the round. Game 4 went at 8 p.m. Game 6 goes at 8 p.m.

Neither of those clock changes moved a hotel night. The weather did, and then the Rays did three times. Friday’s rainout put a Sunday the 18th on the bill in Cleveland, Saturday’s 7-3 made Monday the 19th in St. Petersburg unavoidable, Sunday’s 3-1 took Cleveland off the board entirely, and Monday’s 7-3 ended the round, killed the Tuesday, and put the Series’ middle leg in St. Petersburg.

Who should be booking which city

One line each. Find yours, make the call, close the tab.

Brewers fans: it is yours, 4-1, and there is nothing left to book. Milwaukee won Games 1, 2 and 3, 3-2, 5-4 and 10-1, lost Game 4 in 12 innings, and closed it 4-1 at Tropicana Field on Wednesday, October 28. American Family Field hosted World Series Games 1 and 2 on Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24, and the Games 6 and 7 posted there for October 30 and 31 were never played. First pitch was 7 p.m. local on both, posted October 16. Two things decided how hard Saturday was to buy. The Menomonee Valley has no hotel of its own, so the real decision is downtown versus the West Milwaukee cluster and downtown is a ride either way. And the Bucks’ home opener, moved to 3 p.m. on the 16th to clear the way for Game 1, came and went on the Friday; Saturday had no second crowd because the Bucks were in Philadelphia. Cancel the 30th and 31st holds; a 24-hour rate on the Friday is still inside its window on Thursday, and a day-of rate on the Saturday is too.

Dodgers fans: it is over. Dodger Stadium lost Game 3 6-2 on October 14 and Game 4 6-4 on the 15th, and Milwaukee swept. There is no Game 5 on the 16th. If you are holding that Friday, call the property rather than filing a web form; a 24-hour window closed on the 15th and a polite call the morning after an elimination gets a better answer than a form a week later. Los Angeles is a 2027 read.

Rays fans: the season ended at home on the 28th, 4-1 in five. Tropicana Field lost ALCS Game 1 7-3 on October 12 and won Game 2 3-1 on the 13th, then lost Game 3 in Cleveland 3-2 on the 15th, won the rain-delayed Game 4 there 7-3 on the 17th, won Game 5 3-1 on the 18th, and clinched at home 7-3 on Monday the 19th. World Series Game 3 on Monday, October 26 went 10-1 to Milwaukee, and World Series Game 4 on Tuesday the 27th went 4-3 to the Rays in 12 innings, Pratt’s homer in the top of the 12th answered by DeLuca’s tying single and Ben Williamson’s walk-off, and World Series Game 5 on Wednesday the 28th went 4-1 to the Brewers, who won the Series. A St. Pete room on the 29th or after is an ordinary shoulder-season room. For the record, this was the smallest room market in the bracket and every Series home date was a weeknight, an unusual shape worth knowing for next time: the beach-built minimum-stay rules in Pinellas County key off Friday and Saturday, so they had nothing to attach to, though a three-night fence across the 26th to the 28th did show up. Pick the shortest walk.

Guardians fans: the season is over. Progressive Field won Game 3 3-2 on October 15 in a 1 p.m. start, then lost the rain-delayed Game 4 7-3 on the 17th, Game 5 3-1 on the 18th, and Game 6 in St. Petersburg 7-3 on the 19th. Out, 4-2. If you are holding an Ohio room for October 26 through 28 on this page’s advice, cancel it now; the hold was refundable and the pennant settled a week before Game 3, so it costs nothing. If you are holding a St. Petersburg room for Tuesday the 20th, there is no game on it, and a day-of-arrival rate cancels Tuesday morning. The Cavaliers’ home dates on the 26th and 28th are ordinary arena nights now.

The four host markets, one calendar fact each

We ran the arena, convention and football calendars for every market still holding a baseball date. Nobody puts the hotel question and the sports-calendar question on the same page, which is the only reason this table is worth anything. Re-checked October 15 against the leagues’ released schedules and the venues’ own listings.

Two rows to circle, for opposite reasons.

St. Petersburg, October 26 to 28, and all three got played. Three consecutive World Series nights drawn in the smallest room market in the bracket, Monday through Wednesday, and the Wednesday was the clincher. The thing that was genuinely scarce was the walkable Edge District block rather than the rate, and a Series pulls in buyers who were never going to a Championship Series game. Parking did not save anyone either: the Rays’ lots were 100 percent prepaid for playoff games with no drive-up sales, so the plan without a pass was a downtown garage and the free Looper Baseball Shuttle.

Milwaukee, October 30 and 31. The worst-case stack in the bracket, and it did not happen. A possible Game 6 on the Friday, a possible Game 7 on Halloween Saturday, and a three-day fandom convention listed at the downtown Baird Center across both: the Brewers’ win in Game 5 took the baseball out of it, so what is left on those two nights is the championship parade on the Friday, now posted in full: 10 a.m. from Vel R. Phillips and Wisconsin, east and south through downtown, ending at Henry Maier Festival Park, a free rally there from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., at least 400,000 expected and road closures from 7 a.m. Then GalaxyCon, listed rather than confirmed because one aggregator still carries a cancelled flag while tickets sell, a Bucks home game and Halloween. Every room that was held against a Game 6 or 7 went back on the market Wednesday night. The useful correction is which night the parade actually took: a 10 a.m. step-off is a Thursday-night stay, so the released Friday inventory largely stayed released, and the fans driving in from around the state took the park-and-ride: free parking at American Family Field, $5 shuttle, buses 7 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

A word on rentals, and the cancellation tier nobody reads

We push the whole-home option hard in most guides, and for a crew of four it usually wins on the math. In October the clock decides it, and the clock is set one listing at a time.

Vrbo does not run one cancellation policy. It runs seven standard tiers and the host picks one per property. Two of them are loose. Day-before returns everything up to 24 hours before check-in, which is a hotel’s terms by another name, and Lenient returns everything up to five days out. The other five put the full-refund cutoff at 14 days or earlier: Relaxed at 14 days with half back between 7 and 14, Moderate at 30, Firm and Strict at 60, and No refund never. A 24-hour rental term does exist on Vrbo, then. Whether the house you want is running it is the thing to check, and the tier is printed on the listing page. We have not counted how many houses in these markets sit on the loose tiers, so do not book expecting one.

On a certain night a strict tier costs you nothing, and St. Petersburg on October 28 was that night: a one-night buy with nothing attached, which is the shape where a cleaning fee is a straight surcharge, and St. Pete’s nightly whole-home supply sits mostly in the beach municipalities on the SunRunner rather than downtown, so the house had to beat two compressed hotel rooms on a single night. Cleveland’s rental case is gone for the year. Milwaukee’s never came back: the ballpark still has no hotel within a walk, so four people would have been choosing between stacked downtown rooms plus two rides and a house in the Third Ward, Walker’s Point or Wauwatosa with a driveway, but the 30th and 31st needed a Rays win on the Wednesday and did not get one. A house booked for them on any strict tier is the cost of a conditional night, paid in full.

For a conditional night like October 30 and 31 were, you need a term that clears a result from the night before. Two exist. Airbnb’s Flexible policy refunds in full to 24 hours before check-in, and Vrbo’s Day-before tier does the same on the listings whose hosts chose it. Airbnb pays us nothing. We are saying it anyway. On anything stricter, a World Series Game 6 or 7 booking cost the full stay whether or not the game was ever played, and this year it was not; a Relaxed tier booked in mid-October for an October 30 stay was inside its own 14-day wall from the day it was booked.

One legal wrinkle, filed here because it is the kind of thing that only surfaces when it is too late to use. California Senate Bill 644 requires hotels, booking services and hosting platforms to allow penalty-free cancellation for at least 24 hours after a reservation is confirmed, for California properties booked on or after July 1, 2024. The catch is on the booking rather than the cancellation: the reservation has to be made 72 or more hours before check-in for the grace window to attach at all. Anyone who bought a Dodger Stadium Game 5 room after Game 3 went final on October 14 was inside that 72 hours and never got the window. The game was never played. It covers hotels and not just rentals, which almost no confirmation email mentions, and the Dodger Stadium guide runs the detail.

The cutoff math, which is now the entire game

Cancellation cutoffs typically close 24 to 72 hours before check-in and are pegged to check-in time, usually 3 or 4 p.m. On a certain night that arithmetic does not matter, because the only thing you are insuring against is a flight or a change of heart. On a conditional night it is the whole product. The two conditional nights, both in Milwaukee, resolved on the 28th. Here is how each one went.

Monday, October 19 in St. Petersburg is off this list, and the way it came off is worth keeping. For most of last week the 19th was the trickiest number on the page. ALCS Game 6 happened unless Cleveland won both games in Cleveland, cancellation windows peg to check-in at 3 or 4 p.m., a 48-hour window on a Monday check-in closed Saturday afternoon before Game 4 even started, and the rainout had slid Game 5 onto a Sunday 5 p.m. slot so even the 24-hour window shut about an hour before first pitch. The advice was day-of-arrival terms, or watch for the shortcut: a Rays win in Game 4 would make Game 6 certain on the spot. That is what happened on Saturday the 17th. Then Sunday’s 3-1 added the part nobody was hedging for, which is that the same night became a clinch chance, and on Monday the Rays took it, 7-3. The night is played. The lesson that survives it: when a result makes a night certain, buy it on an ordinary refundable rate and stop pricing optionality you no longer need.

Wednesday, October 28 in St. Petersburg, for the record. World Series Game 5 was the night that needed a Rays win on Tuesday to exist, and it got one, 4-3 in 12 innings. Then it was the clincher: Brewers 4, Rays 1, Milwaukee’s first title. Whoever held the 28th on day-of terms and kept it saw the Series end; whoever skipped it was shopping a clinch night in a small downtown with less than a day to go.

Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31 in Milwaukee. Posted for World Series Games 6 and 7, never played. The condition was the Series reaching six games, and with Milwaukee up 3-1 that meant a Rays win in Game 5 on Wednesday the 28th; the Brewers won it 4-1 instead. A 48-hour window on a Friday the 30th check-in closed Wednesday afternoon, before that game started, which is the rate that got burned. A 24-hour window closes Thursday, after the result, and clears it. That was the whole case for 24-hour terms on the 30th and day-of on the 31st.

The short version, graded after the Series: October 30 at 24 hours cleared, October 31 on day-of terms cleared, and nothing anywhere in this postseason was safe at 48. The one certain night, St. Petersburg on the 28th, took an ordinary refundable rate and no cleverness at all. The full option-pricing logic is in the refundable-rate playbook.

What to actually do

Three things, in order.

Cancel what is dead, which is everything. Milwaukee’s October 30 and 31 as of the 28th, Cleveland as of October 19, Los Angeles as of October 15, plus Chicago on both sides of town, the Bronx, Atlanta, San Diego, Houston, Boston and Philadelphia. All twelve playoff clubs are done and every park is finished for the year. If you are holding a room in any of those cities for an October baseball date, the money is either coming back or it already isn’t, and your confirmation says which. Read the confirmation rather than your memory of it. The Cleveland hold is the fresh one: it was refundable, the pennant settled a week before the night, so it should come back clean.

There is no certain night left to book. St. Petersburg on Wednesday, October 28 was it, and it was played; St. Pete is small enough that the walkable blocks were the scarce thing rather than the rate, and a clinch night pulled harder than a Game 3 did.

Then release the conditional holds, because the result released them: the October 30 and 31 rooms in Milwaukee have no game on them, and the 24-hour and day-of terms this page asked for are what let you out clean. The one reason to keep the Friday was the parade, and the posted 10 a.m. start takes that reason away: a Friday check-in lands after the parade and after the 3 p.m. rally. Keep it only for the night after, or drive in on the park-and-ride. The World Series page runs that market in full. All of it is settled: Milwaukee hosted Games 1 and 2 on its 103-59 record, St. Petersburg hosted Games 3, 4 and 5 on the pennant the Rays won at home on October 19, and the Brewers won it there in five. The clock lesson outlives the Series: 8 p.m. ET every night meant a game that went long had you back at the room near midnight. Price next October’s flight home off that, not off a 7 p.m. habit.