The A's win the AL West ... Texas lands in the wild card game.
By beating the Phillies this afternoon, the Nats wrap up the best NL record -- they will meet the St. Louis at Atlanta winner in the NLDS. The Giants will open at Cincinnati in the other NLDS.
The ALDS is still unsettled ...
If the Orioles lose tonight, they play at Texas Friday (no matter what the Yankees do tonight) in the wild card game.
If the Orioles win and the Yankees win, then Texas will play at Baltimore Friday. The Yankees will have the best AL record and will get the wild card winner.
If the Orioles win and the Yankees lose, then the Yankees will play at Baltimore Thursday -- the winner of that game hets the division and the best record in the AL. The loser has to play at Texas Friday.
Think you are wrong, but it is a moot point -- the Olrioles lost to the Rays and will face Texas in Arlington Friday. The Yankees finish with the best record in the AL and will get the wild-card winner in the first round. Oakland will face Detroit in the ALDS.
Because of the messed up schedule, the top-seeded teams in the LDS will all open on the road and only get the homefield edge if it goes to five games. Saw a stat that said that only 25 percent of all five-game series go to a fifth game -- so that should work out to one of the four.
As noted in this thread, Lohse and Medlin are the starting pithers in the NL wild card. Yu Darvish will start for the Rangers Friday ... haven't heard he Orioles starter yt.
Just to clarify my thinking on the moot point ...
Entering Wednesday's games, the Yanks had 94 wins, the O's 93 wins, Oakland 93 wins, Texas 93 wins.
You posited the following scenario: Yanks lose and O's win, leaving both with 94 wins, and a Thursday playoff @ Baltimore. You knew Tex had already lost on Wed and was stuck in the wild card game, and stuck on 93 wins.
You then said the loser of the Thursday Yanks/O's game (a 94-win team) would be traveling to Texas (a 93-win team) on Friday.
[Would MLB count the extra 1-game playoff as part of the regular season, and would 93 win Tex (out of 162 games) get the home field nod over the 94 win Balt/NY loser (out of 163 games)? I'm assuming that the 94 win out of 162/163 Balt/NY loser would have gotten home field over 93 win out of 162 Tex.]
Last edited by Reilly; 10-04-2012 at 07:06 AM.
The way it was set up, per the article I posted yesterday:
So, if there was a 1-game playoff, Baltimore would have hosted the wildcard if they lost as they already had some tiebreaker over both the A's and Rangers. Though, as you said, it's moot now.If [Baltimore] beat Rays today and Yankees beat Red Sox, [the Orioles] will play in wild-card game in Baltimore on Friday against loser of A’s vs. Rangers Game 162
Thank you, blazindw. I thought I was right, and knew that no-nothing OlyFan just had to be wrong. Seriously, I couldn't find an article with the various scenarios early yesterday morning, so actually did a PPS 55 decision tree to see the various outcomes and figure out for myself what was going on. Then, when OlyFan posted something that made me question my results I got very worried, as his posts are always so thorough and detailed and many layers deeper than what I usually think of.