Before yesterday, when the Twins won and the Angels lost, leaving both teams one game behind the Astros going into the last weekend of the season, I hadn't thought to wonder about what happens in the event of a three-way tie for the last wild-card spot. Three is obviously an awkward number for a mini-tournament and, according to what I read on my phone in bed late last night, an awkward mini-tournament is exactly what we'd get. The details are sort of interesting.
The three teams would be designated A, B, and C. On the day after the end of the regular season, A would play a home game against B. Next day, the winner would play a home game against C. The winner of that game would secure the second wild-card spot. If it happened to be B that prevailed, the wild-card game would be their third elimination game in three days in three different cities.
What's really interesting, however, is how the teams are designated A, B, and C. The first consideration is their record in games against the two other teams. The Angels (14-12) win this contest over the Astros (13-12) and the Twins (5-8), and so would get to choose their place in the mini-tournament. Would they choose C? I think so: you get a day off, and only have to win once to get to the wild-card game. The Astros have the second-best record, and I'm sure they would then choose A. The Twins would be B, and would play in Houston on Monday. If they won, they'd play the Angels on Tuesday at Target Field. If they won that game, they'd play the wild-card game against the Yankees, in New York, on Wednesday.
The travel is crazy, but so is the fact that so much hinges on your record in games against the teams you're tied with. A three-way dead heat after 162 games is resolved by playing a jerry-rigged tournament in which the teams are in effect seeded based on 26 games that the Angels played, 25 that the Astros played, and 13 that the Twins played. And it's not as if the seeds are anything like equal. If we could stipulate that the three entrants all have a sixty percent chance of winning a home game and a forty percent chance of winning a road game, then there is a forty percent chance that C would prevail, a thirty-six percent chance that A would, and a twenty-four percent chance that B would.
Well, it's one of those things that I think is wrong but for which I don't have any solution. If you're upset about being Team B, you should have won one more game over the course of the long summer. Anyway, the chance of someone having to suffer the sorry fate of Team B this year sank considerably while I've been writing this, because the Twins just lost to the Royals, the Angels have won their game, and the Astros are pounding Arizona.
But let's see. If the Twins could win their two remaining games . . . and the Astros lose both of theirs . . . and the Angels lose at least once . . . . Hope springs eternal in the breast of a fool.
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