Nearly six months after its start and only days from its finish, MLB's regular season boils down to this for three teams: There might be some extra baseball before they reach the postseason.
The Astros, Angels and Twins could conceivably wind up in a three-way tie for the American League's second wild card, necessitating a two-game mini play-in tournament early next week.
POSTSEASON TEAM PREVIEWS: Dodgers | Blue Jays | Cubs | Royals
Let's walk through how that could happen, bearing in mind that the Astros have three games remaining against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix, the Angels have three more at Texas, and the Twins host three against the Royals.
The Astros (84-75), Angels (83-76) and Twins (83-76) could wind up tied with anywhere from 84 to 86 wins, depending on how they fare in those series.
The ABCs of team designations
In the event of a three-way tie, the play-in games are based on designating teams A, B and C on a scheduled set up as follows, according to MLB :
After Clubs have been assigned their A, B and C designations, Club A would host Club B. The winner of the game would then host Club C to determine the Wild Card Club.
So how are A, B and C determined? That's easy: Rob Manfred thinks of a number, and the managers make guesses (kidding).
The math — and magic — of tiebreaking
The whole tiebreaking process begins (swipe up on the home screen to access your calculator) with how the teams fared against one another. The answer: The Angels took their season series against the Twins, 5-2; the Astros edged the Angels in their season series, 10-9; and the Twins and Astros split their season series, 3-3.
Which takes us to this portion of MLB's tiebreaking procedures (and we'll fill in the letters with team names):
… If Club 1 [the Angels] has a better record against Club 2 [the Twins], Club 2 [the Twins] and 3 [the Astros] have identical records against one another and Club 3 [the Astros] has a better record against Club 1 [the Angels] …
a. The Clubs will be ranked by their overall winning percentage amongst the other Clubs combined. The Club with the highest overall winning percentage in that group chooses its designation, followed by the team with the next highest overall winning percentage.
Clear so far? So, those winning percentages: Angels 14-12 (.538), Astros 13-12 (.520) and Twins 5-8 (.385).
So, c'mon, what's the schedule already?
Finally, we get to the play-in portion of our story. MLB has yet to announce its schedule in the event this happens, but the AL wild-card game currently is scheduled for Tuesday. In this scenario, it almost certainly would have to be pushed back for play-in games Monday and Tuesday.
So the Angels, by virtue of that .538 winning percentage, get to choose their team designation, and their options, as listed above, are either play two tiebreaker games in Anaheim or one on the road against the winner of a first game between the Astros and Twins.
The only thing worse than gambling an entire MLB season on one must-win playoff game? Gambling it on back-to-back must-win games, even at home. Look for the Angels to choose to be Team C, and thus have one must-win road game.
That leaves the Astros (.520) to choose their designation, and they'll want to play at home, where they were 53-28 (.654) in the regular season. Look for them to choose to be Team A, so they would host the Twins on Monday. If the Astros win, then they'd host the Angels next.
But if the Twins, as Team B, win, then they would travel back to Minneapolis and host the Angels, who likely would stay in Arlington after they wrap up their regular season, waiting to see whether they'd hop to Houston or head for the Twin Cities.
There you have it. Simple, right?
For clarity's sake at this point, there's only one sure thing: All three teams are lamenting lost opportunities to win a few more games during a season that started almost six months ago and has only four days to go.
