OCTOBER SURPRISE

2018 MLB Playoffs: How to Watch or Live Steam With or Without Cable

Major League Baseball makes it hard to consume its product, but we’re here to help.

Major League Baseball’s byzantine postseason is underway—as are the annual queries about how to watch playoff games (that MLB has inconveniently spread across four different networks.)

Last night, the Rockies earned the chance to take on Milwaukee after a five-hour thriller against the Cubs, and the Braves take on the Dodgers on the other side of the NL bracket.

In the American League, Cleveland faces Houston while the Red Sox wait to find out if they’ll be taking on Oakland or their hated rivals from the Bronx.

Here’s a breakdown of how you can ensure you don’t miss a single playoff game.

Option 1: Have a cable or satellite package that includes TBS, Fox Sports 1, and MLB Network.

This is the easiest—albeit most expensive—option. Being a TBS subscriber ensures you can watch every AL divisional and league championship game live online at TBS.com, every game on Fox or FS1 at Fox Sports Go, and the remainder on MLB Network online.

All three options will require you to authenticate with your provider.

Option 2: Subscribe to an online TV package.

Hulu, Sling TV, Playstation Vue, and DirecTV Now all offer packages featuring the necessary channels to watch most games, though not all of them will offer your local Fox affiliate; you may need to get a cheap TV antenna to tune those in if you don't have a Fox station available in your regional lineup.

Costs range from $25-$50/month for these packages.

Option 3: MLB.tv

Here’s where things start to get complicated.

For $24.99, MLB is willing to sell you a postseason MLB.tv subscription that allows you to watch live or archived games through the World Series. However, that package does not include games aired on FS1, and the league won’t determine which games it puts on that network until the divisional round is over.

If you aren’t interested in the National League, MLB.tv is your best bet.

Option 4: Theft

MLB has an official, and active, Reddit account. That account is not, we imagine, active in the very unofficial MLBstreams subreddit, where piracy runs rampant. Though these streams exist, we strongly discourage the use of them, given that they’re likely to infect your computer with digital MRSA.

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Timothy Burke

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