The baseball season enters its final weekend with nine of the 10 playoffs teams known. But there's plenty left to be settled over three days – or maybe longer.
Little changed Thursday as all three American League wild-card contenders won but the race for best record in the National League lost a participant.
American League
- Tampa Bay, Cleveland and Texas remain alive for the American League's two wild card spots. Tampa Bay is one game ahead of Cleveland, which is one game ahead of Texas. Tampa Bay's final three games are at Toronto, Cleveland's at Minnesota and Texas' at home against the Los Angeles Angels.
- If two teams tie for the two wild-card spots, head-to-head results during the season will determine home advantage for the wild-card game. Tampa Bay has the edge over Cleveland, Cleveland over Texas and Texas over Tampa Bay.
- Head-to-head also would determine the site of a playoff Monday if two teams tie for the second spot.
- If Tampa Bay, Cleveland and Texas finish with identical records, Cleveland could choose to be Team A, B or C for a three-team playoff because it had the best record in games among the three teams. Team A would host Team B Monday with the winner getting one wild-card spot. The loser would visit Team C on Tuesday for the other spot. After Cleveland selects, Tampa Bay would get second choice of team designation.
- Boston leads Oakland by two games for the AL's best record. Because they split their six games this year, if they finished tied home advantage for all AL series would be determined by the better intra-division record. Boston has a one-game edge there and visits division rival Baltimore this weekend. Oakland meets division rival Seattle.
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