The eight playoff participants feature a nice cross-section of the sport. There are postseason mainstays like the Boston Red Sox, defending World Series champions, and big-market free-spenders like the Dodgers and Cubs. All three clubs rank among the top seven payrolls in the sport.

The Milwaukee Brewers face the Philadelphia Phillies in the first National League Division Series game of the day, an afternoon match-up of middle-of-the-pack payroll teams. The Phillies won the NL East while the Brewers earned a wild-card berth on the season’s final day.

And then there is the small-market surprise. The Tampa Bay Rays, long a joke around the sport since they were formed in 1998, shocked most observers by winning the American League East — baseball’s most powerful division — with a payroll that ranked 29th before the season. Their emergence helped push the New York Yankees out of the postseason for the first time in 13 years. Tampa Bay’s emergence heralds what many in the sport see as a wide-open field.

“I’m a big believer if you flip a coin 14 times we should have more world championships [in Atlanta] than we do and we only have one,” said Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz, who helped his club win 14 NL East titles in a row between 1991 and 2004, but just one World Series in 1995. “So you’ve got to chalk some of the postseason up to chance. Anyone can win this thing.”

There are plenty of intriguing story lines. But the biggest is the Cubs’ quest to win their first World Series since 1908. No other pro sports franchise in North America, while playing continuously in the same city, has gone more than 47 years without a championship. The banged-up Red Sox, with starting third baseman Mike Lowell (hip) and starting right fielder J.D. Drew (back) questionable with injuries, gun for their third title in five seasons when they play at the Los Angeles Angels tonight. The Rays open their first postseason against the AL Central champion Chicago White Sox, who knocked off the Minnesota Twins in a one-game playoff last night.

Division series » Best of five


NLDS

Brewers at Phillies

Game 1 » Tonight at 3, TBS

Yovani Gallardo (0-0, 1.88 ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (14-10, 3.09 ERA)

Dodgers at Cubs

Game 1 » Tonight at 6:30, TBS

Derek Lowe (14-11, 3.24 ERA) vs. Ryan Dempster (17-6, 2.96 ERA)

ALDS

Red Sox at Angels

Game 1 » Tonight at 10, TBS

Jon Lester (16-6, 3.21 ERA) vs. John Lackey (12-5, 3.75 ERA)

White Sox at Rays

Game 1 » Thursday, 2:30 p.m., TBS

TBD vs. James Shields (14-8, 3.56 ERA)