Major League Baseball’s postseason schedule, announced Thursday, leaves very little margin for any unusual event — either weather, or a multiple-team tie for the two wild-card spots. For the latter event, baseball has allowed just one day between the end of the regular season (Oct. 3) and the date planned for the two wild-card play-in games (Oct. 5).
Based on these tweets from Jon Morosi, a multi-team tie for the wild-card spots would mess up that tight schedule:
Getting questions about what happens if 3 teams tied for wild card, as is the case now in AL. Would be a 3-team, 2-day tiebreaker system.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) August 9, 2012
Actually, would be 3 days: Team A hosts Team B; winner to WC game, loser plays Team C; winner of THAT game to WC game also. Then WC game.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) August 9, 2012
So it’s actually two days of playoffs to determine who plays in the wild-card game, and then the third day mentioned by Morosi would be the wild-card game itself. Seeding in such an event would be determined by head-to-head records.
Don’t ask what happens if all the head-to-head records are tied. No one’s said anything about that, and Bud Selig’s head is already about to explode.