White Sox at Astros: Wild Card Series Times, Channels and Streaming Info
The short version
- Best-of-three Wild Card Series opens Tuesday, Sept. 29 at Daikin Park in Houston; all games are on the road for Chicago.
- NBCSN airs the first two games and Peacock streams live; NBCSN is carried only by services such as Xfinity, YouTube TV and Fubo.
- Games 1 and 2 start at 4 p.m. CT; a Game 3 on Oct. 1 would begin at 1 or 7 p.m. CT depending on other series.
- Tom McCarthy calls play-by-play with analysts Geoff Blum and Steve Stone; Adam Ottavino and Britney Eurton also work the broadcast.
- Peacock plans begin at $12.99 per month; the Division Series starts Saturday, Oct. 3.
Chicago opens a best-of-three set in Houston on Tuesday, with NBCSN carrying the first two games, Peacock streaming live, and Game 3 timing still unsettled.
The Chicago White Sox are headed to the postseason, and the first assignment is a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Houston Astros beginning Tuesday, September 29. Every game in the set will be staged at Daikin Park in Houston, leaving Chicago without a home date and needing victories away from home to move on.
Watching from home brings a complication of its own. The first two games belong to NBCSN on cable, with Peacock streaming them live, an arrangement more involved than a standard regular-season telecast. NBCSN, which relaunched in late 2025, reaches only a handful of distributors, among them Xfinity, YouTube TV and Fubo, according to Yahoo Sports. Households without one of those providers will need the streaming service instead.
For most followers of the club, Peacock is the dependable route in. Plans start at $12.99 per month, and the streaming feed will feature Steve Stone on the analyst desk, the lone local commentary option, per South Side Sox.
The schedule is set through the first two days. Game 1 gets underway at 4 p.m. CT on Tuesday, and Game 2 follows at the same hour on Wednesday. A decisive third game, if required, would be played Thursday, October 1, at either 1 p.m. or 7 p.m. CT. Per the schedule NBC Sports released, that start hinges on when the series involving the Phillies, Cubs and Red Sox wrap up, so viewers should double-check apps and cable listings. The same framework applies to all four Wild Card matchups.
NBC's booth crew for the series is set. Tom McCarthy, familiar to Philadelphia audiences from his Phillies work, handles play-by-play, flanked by analysts Geoff Blum on the Houston side and Steve Stone representing Chicago. Per NBC Sports, former pitcher Adam Ottavino fills the 'Inside the Pitch' analyst role, and Britney Eurton reports from the dugout.
The divide between cable and streaming is intentional, with the network balancing its linear channel against its digital platform. Even so, the arrangement can leave some viewers stranded unless they hold the right subscription.
The round's structure adds another layer of difficulty. Per South Side Sox, the packed playoff calendar includes no travel day, so the lower seed must play every potential game at the higher seed's ballpark. For the White Sox, that places the entire series inside Houston's stadium, far from any home-field support, with each pitch carrying weight in a set this short. The stakes run especially high for a club that has had an uneven stretch in recent years.
Advancing brings little relief. The Division Series opens Saturday, October 3, handing the winner almost no downtime before the next round arrives.
On Global Sportscast's listings, the Chicago White Sox travel to face the Houston Astros on Tuesday, September 29 at 5:00 PM EDT at Daikin Park, with the game airing on Peacock and NBCSN.
Games to watch
