I know if necessary, they will be played on Monday, either NY @ CLE, or CLE @ BOS.
Either I’m looking in the wrong place, or not looking hard enough, but I can’t find a potential start time for either game. I’m guessing they’d be afternoon games, to allow for travel when the playoffs start Tuesday, but on the other hand, a night game means more $$.
Anyone have an idea when the games would start?
I don’t think you’re covering all your bases there.
Monday might be NY-Bos for the division title and the loser MAY or MAY NOT have to play Cleveland after that.
Given your scenario, I don’t know the times.
They haven’t even decided which of the National League series will start on the 4th yet, so I’m not surprised they haven’t announced when tiebreaker games would be played.
Why they can’t announce the NLDS times, I don’t know, since it’s pretty well obvious who will be playing and where the series will open.
Yep, I failed to consider that the East could still end up tied. Bonus basebal. Woo hoo!
Why would they have a playoff when the Indians and ChiSox wouldn’t?
If Cleveland ties the White Sox, the Sox still win the division. The Indians would then either have won the wild card or would have to win a playoff game.
Chicago clinched their division. They wouldn’t be involved in tie breakers in any way.
Reading my post, I see that I sound argumentative when I meant to sound confused. Confused!
They can end up with the same record as the Indians. If the Indians sweep them in the final three games (not likely, but still) they would be tied. But the White Sox have already clinched the division because they won the season series.
If the Red Sox win two of three from New York, they will be tied. Why do they play a playoff game for the Eastern division win?
Ah, nevermind. I found the cite:
Thanks for the cite, jsgoddess…I was wondering about that…oh, and…
GO TRIBE!!!
Yes, thanks for the cite. It still took a few readings before it made sense, though.
Check this out…
That’s some wild shit! :eek:
Go Red Sox!
If Cleveland sweeps the series against Chicago, they will be the wild card. Regardless of what the Yankees and Red Sox do.
If Cleveland sweeps the series against Chicago, they will be the wild card. Regardless of what the Yankees and Red Sox do.
Cleveland loses division tie breaker rules to Chicago (no games), and MLB does not hold the team that lost a Division to a tie breaker to any playoff for the wild card.
Cleveland simply gets the wildcard sans wild card tie breaker. The rest are SOL.
Well, no, the statement that “MLB does not hold the team that lost a Division to a tie breaker to any playoff for the wild card.” is simply false. It can’t happen to Cleveland this year because there’s no possible combination of wins that results in that scenario - if Cleveland were to tie Chicago, they’d have 96 wins. It’s impossible for New York and Boston to both finish with 96 wins. If Cleveland wins 96 games they win the Wild Card outright, by at least one full game.
But if Chicago and Cleveland hadn’t won as many games as they had - let’s say, they’d both ended the year with 94 wins - then it could have happened. Suppose both Chicago and Cleveland had ended 94-68, Chicago still winning the tiebreaker, while New York finished 96-66 and Boston finished 94-68. Cleveland is bumped to second by the tiebreaker, and Boston and Cleveland would then play off for the wild card.
If any team ties for a division win, but loses the division win based on tie breaker rules (not a tie breaker game), the team that loses the division based on tie breaker rules is given the wildcard, even if their record is the same as other teams vying for the wildcard with the same record. No game is played, and no other tie breaker criteria is used.
But I thought (from the earlier cite) that the only reason they would use tie breaker rules instead of a tie breaker game is that both were already guaranteed to make the playoffs.
That seems like circular reasoning.
The reason the White Sox and Indians would use tie breaker rules instead of a one-game playoff is because they would both be guaranteed to make the playoffs.
They would be guaranteed to make the playoffs because they used tie breaker rules instead of a one game playoff.
This is not true, as RickJay explained.
The Indians case is special because there cannot be two other teams in the AL with the same number of wins as Chicago.
That doesn’t really make sense, and defies all precedent and logic. I’d need a cite to believe it.
And, of course, now no other team can have the same number of wins as Chicago, since they won tonight.