With wild-card matchups set, there are a few things fans should know before the action gets underway. The first is that the Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers will all have opening-round byes. Their first playoff action won’t come until Saturday, October 4.
Secondly, each league’s third division-winner and top wild-card teams will have home-field advantage throughout the wild-card round. That’s one reason why the Cleveland Guardians’ late-season surge to an AL Central title was so huge.
The Guardians, who were 15½ games back in early July, won the division via tiebreakers over the Detroit Tigers—whose collapse was nearly as epic as Cleveland’s comeback.
Detroit still had a 10-game lead in early September before a miserable month. At least, the Tigers will have a shot at redemption against their division rivals this week.
“This familiarity can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said, per Evan Woodberry of MLive. “So we’re going to have to turn over every rock and make sure we’re prepared.”
The Guardians will now be at home for all three (if necessary) games against the Tigers in the wild-card round. The Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs will also hold home-field advantage this week.
Once the divisional round begins this weekend, teams will engage in five-game series with the top division winners holding home-field advantage. Those series will follow a 2-2-1 home-field format. The ALCS, NLCS and World Series are all best-of-seven series following a 2-3-2 format.
The MLB playoff bracket does not feature reseeding, so the No. 1 seed will never face another division-winner ahead of the League Championship Series.
The Blue Jays will play the winner of the Yankees and Boston Red Sox wild-card matchup, while the Brewers will face the winner of the San Diego Padres and Cubs matchup.
The team with the better regular-season record will have home-field advantage in the ALCS, NLCS and World Series.
In last year’s playoffs, three of the top four seeds made it to the League Championship Round—along with the sixth-seeded New York Mets. Both No. 1 seeds, the Yankees and Dodgers, faced off in the World Series.
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