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| Part of a series on the |
| Major League Baseball postseason |
|---|
| Wild Card Series |
| Division Series |
| League Championship Series |
| World Series |
| Teams |
TheLeague Championship Series (LCS) is thesemifinal round ofpostseason play inMajor League Baseball which has been conducted since1969. In1981, and since1995, the two annual series have matched up the winners of theDivision Series, and the winners advance to meet in theWorld Series. The LCS comprises theAmerican League Championship Series (ALCS) andNational League Championship Series (NLCS).
The League Championship Series was created in1969, when both theNational League and theAmerican League increased in size from ten teams to twelve with the addition, viaexpansion, of theMontreal Expos andSan Diego Padres to the former and theKansas City Royals andSeattle Pilots (now theMilwaukee Brewers of the NL) to the latter. Both leagues then formed East and West Divisions, the first-place teams from which faced off in the LCS.
For its first sixteen seasons, the League Championship Series werebest-of-five, using the2–3 format in which the team withouthome field advantage hosted the first two games, and the team with it hosted the rest of the LCS, making it impossible for the disadvantaged team to win the series at home. It also allowed those teams the unusual luxury of starting a series at home, possibly having home-field advantage in a three-game series, and a guarantee that they play two games at home.
In1985,[1][2] the LCS was lengthened tobest-of-seven games in the2–3–2 format with the team holding home-field advantage opening the series at home and playing the next three games on the road, before returning home for two more possible games. The disadvantaged team would have had more games played at home than on the road if the series ends in five games.
Since1995, the LCS has matched up the winners of theDivision Series, which were added when both leagues realigned into three divisions.
Until1998, the home-field advantage in the LCS was allocated on a rotating basis between the two (three from 1995 through1997) division champions; since 1998, that advantage is given to the team with the better regular season record, except that if a division champion faces a wild card team, the division champion always gets home-field advantage regardless of record.
As of2025, all thirty MLB teams have reached the LCS at least once. The Houston Astros and Milwaukee Brewers are the only teams to have played in both the ALCS and NLCS.[3] Four teams have never lost an LCS: theColorado Rockies (won in2007), theMiami Marlins (won as the Florida Marlins in1997 and2003), theTampa Bay Rays (won in2008 and2020), and theTexas Rangers (won in2010,2011, and2023).