Wild card race

Texas gained a significant advantage with a weekend sweep over Seattle. The Rangers enter the week with a 2. The Rangers could have the division title wrapped up, wild card race, or be close to it, by the time they reach Seattle on Thursday. Seattle has the most to gain wild card race the next seven days, as it plays host to the Astros and Rangers at T-Mobile Park.

In Major League Baseball MLB , the wild card teams are the three teams in each of the two leagues American and National that have qualified for the postseason despite failing to win their division. Those teams in each league possess the three best winning percentages in their league after the three division winners. The wild card was first instituted in MLB in , with one wild card team per league advancing to the Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. In , the system was modified to add a second wild card team per league and pit each league's wild card teams against each other in a play-in game — the MLB Wild Card Game — the winner of which would then advance to the Division Series and play the team with the best record. The two teams with the best records outside of the division champions advanced to the wild card game. The two wild card teams could come out of the same division so there was no guarantee a team that came in second place in their division would make the playoffs. The system was changed in to add a third wild card team from each league, along with replacing the play-in game with three-game series.

Wild card race

Sep 21, , AM Updated: Sep 25, , pm. The Marlins sit one game back. So what will it take to hold onto a playoff spot? How does the relatively revamped wild card race work? Three of each of those buckets make the playoffs via a wild card spot after three division winners from each of the AL and NL earn an automatic berth. This is a recent change, as the postseason field expanded in from five teams to six teams in each league, eliminating the single wild card game. Seeding for the six teams gives preference to the division winners over team record. The division winners earn the first three seeds, in order of record. The three wild card teams are then seeded in order of best record. Diamondbacks fans most recently experienced the single-game wild card format that is now gone. In , D-backs reliever Archie Bradley hit a triple to highlight a win against the Colorado Rockies that put Arizona in the divisional series where they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In North American professional sports leagues, "wild card" refers to a team that qualifies for the championship playoffs without winning their specific conference or division outright.

A wild card also wildcard or wild-card and also known as an at-large berth or at-large bid is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way; for example, by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference. In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to two sporting traditions: team wildcards distributed among countries at the Olympic Games and individual wildcards given to some tennis players at every professional tournament both smaller events and the major ones such as Wimbledon. Tennis players may even ask for a wildcard and get one if they want to enter a tournament on short notice.

First Round Bye. Kansas City. Las Vegas. New England. Buffalo is ahead of Kansas City based on head-to-head record Cleveland is ahead of Miami based on conference record to the Dolphins' Cincinnati is ahead of Jacksonville based on head-to-head record San Francisco. Tampa Bay. Green Bay.

Wild card race

Thanks to victories by the Texas Rangers, Houston Astros and Miami Marlins on Saturday, those team punched postseason tickets — while the Toronto Blue Jays gained entry thanks to the Rangers' elimination of the Seattle Mariners with a victory. Just two playoff scenarios are in question: The AL West champion will be determined by Sunday's nd game, with the Rangers needing just a win over Seattle to clinch; an Astros loss at Arizona would also give Texas the division title. And the No. A Miami win at Pittsburgh would ensure Miami clinches the fifth seed and opens the playoffs at Philadelphia. A Miami loss and Arizona win would give the Diamondbacks a half-game edge and perhaps force the Marlins to make up the last inning of a game they lead against the New York Mets on Monday. Major League Baseball has not yet stipulated whether that game will occur should that scenario play out Sunday. Show Caption. Hide Caption. Mackenzie Salmon and former MLB catcher Erik Kratz discuss recent moves by commissioner Rob Manfred and whether he's starting to get in the good graces of fans and players.

Thesaurus for welcome

Houston and Seattle will throw their best three starting pitchers inside T-Mobile Park in what will feel like a playoff series. The new system was instituted in but first used in because a players strike canceled the playoffs when Major League Baseball expanded from two to three divisions per league. With the expansion of Super Rugby to 18 teams in , featuring a permanent sixth franchise for South Africa and new teams based in Argentina and Japan , the competition format was changed again. This occurred in , when the 11—7 Calgary Stampeders qualified in place of the 4—14 Montreal Alouettes. This ends up resulting, sometimes, in major surprises of who makes the tournament as at-large teams. Through the season , the competition was divided into three conferences of five teams each, with every conference consisting solely of teams from one of the participating countries. A new way to solve the problem is to attempt to switch to a more prominent conference, a phenomenon that was especially prevalent in and the early s. The number of wild card qualifiers was expanded to two per conference in — the divisional winners were granted a bye week while the wild card teams, seeded 4 and 5, played each other in a "wild card game" with the 4 seed having home field advantage. In the National Hockey League NHL , the first, second, and third place teams in each division qualify for the playoffs automatically, and two additional teams, regardless of divisional alignment, also qualify by having the best records among the remaining teams in the conference. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference. Various association football tournaments use the wild card format, such as in the UEFA European Championship , where it was expanded to 6 groups of 4 starting from the edition of the tournament , the top two from each group qualify for the knockout round, while 4 wild cards the 4 best-performing teams ranked third in the group also qualify. The thirty teams that fail to win their respective Provincial Championships receive a second opportunity to reach the All-Ireland Series via the All Ireland Qualifiers also known as the 'back door', similar to a wildcard. This was done in part because division rivals had already played each other twice in the regular season and also in part because the AFL did not want the playoff games to be confused as "division championship games" — by keeping division rivals separate in the opening playoff round, the league left fans in no doubt that the regular season division winners were the only true division champions, even if a runner-up eventually won the league title.

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Main article: Bids to college bowl games. So what will it take to hold onto a playoff spot? To accommodate the expanded round robin schedule, the playoffs will revert to the old three team, two game format thus eliminating the page playoff and quarter-final round. The wild card was first instituted in MLB in , with one wild card team per league advancing to the Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. If there is a tie for the final wildcard position, the non-winner that advances will be based on the same regulations as two contestants who tie for second in a regular game; the tie-breaker is the contestant's score after the Double Jeopardy! The next tie-breaker is divisional record, regardless if the two clubs play in the same division or not. Now, the wild card round unfolds with two best-of-three series in both the American and National Leagues. Prior to —10, the original Challenge Cup also had "wildcard" teams entering its knockout stages. Contents move to sidebar hide. A s the MLB regular season nears its conclusion this Sunday , the playoff race intensifies with a focus on the wild card entries. The NFL format was criticized for its ability to cause a team tied for first overall in the league to miss the playoffs this happened once, in , when the Baltimore Colts missed the postseason despite a. They are the No. In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to two sporting traditions: team wildcards distributed among countries at the Olympic Games and individual wildcards given to some tennis players at every professional tournament both smaller events and the major ones such as Wimbledon. The two wild card teams could come out of the same division so there was no guarantee a team that came in second place in their division would make the playoffs.