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Los Angeles Dodgers (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

When the Dodgers finished off the Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday, it left the baseball world with a five-day wait until the start of the World Series.

The 2024 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees begins on Friday, October 25 and runs until Saturday, November 2 when all seven games take place.

Which leads to the obvious question: Why is there such a long gap between the end of the two League Championship Series and the start of the World Series?

MLB actually planned this. When it announced the postseason schedule in early August, the World Series dates could be pushed back if both LCS ended early.

But with a five-game ALCS and a six-game NLCS, these series didn’t end quickly enough to trigger that schedule adjustment. If both championship series had been completed on Saturday, October 19, the first game of the World Series would have been moved to Tuesday, October 22. In that scenario, the World Series would have run from October 22 through October. 30.

So when the Mets forced a Game 6 in the NLCS, they also ensured the World Series would start on Friday. If the NLCS had gone to seven games, it would have concluded on Monday, October 21st. If the ALCS had gone to seven games, it would have concluded on Tuesday, October 22nd.

So if the ALCS had played seven games, a Friday start to the World Series made perfect sense (especially since the league had to consider the possibility of a rainstorm that could have pushed the game back a day to Wednesday). And if the NLCS had ended one game earlier, we would be getting ready for the World Series that would start in a day. Instead, everyone gets a full work week to prepare for the World Series.

World Series schedule

The starting times of the matches have not yet been announced. All games will be broadcast on Fox.