Baseball Playoffs

Today is the last day of the regular season in baseball and things are still up in the air.

The National League is a bit more settled. The San Francisco Giants have won the West and the #3 seed. The Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals have secured the wild card spots and will play each other on Friday in the one-game wild card match.

The only thing that is not settled in the NL is the seeding between the East champion Washington Nationals and the Central champion Cincinnati Reds. If Washington wins today (they are leading 2-1 in the bottom of the 6th at this writing), the Nationals take the #1 seed. Cincinnati can only secure the #1 seed if Washington loses and they defeat St. Louis tonight.

So, the odds favor Cincinnati playing San Francisco in the first round while Washington will square off against the wild card winner.

The American League is a bit more unsettled. The Detroit Tigers have won the Central division and the #3 seed and that's about all we can say.

In the East, the New York Yankees have a one game lead on the Baltimore Orioles. If New York wins against the Boston Red Sox tonight, they will win the East and the #1 seed. Baltimore will take a wild card spot regardless of whether they win or not. If the Yankees lose and Baltimore wins, there will be a tie atop the East. That the Yankees haven't clinched regardless, suggests to me that Baltimore would either win the tiebreaker or there would be a one-game playoff for the division crown.

In the West, the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers are tied with one game between them. The winner will win the division and the loser will take the wild card. If the Yankees win, the winner will take the #2 seed. If the Yankees lose, there will be a tie in percentage and it will come down to head to head record to see who gets the #1 seed.

My own guess is that the Yankees will end up with the East and the #1 seed and will host the wild card winner. Oakland is hot right now and are playing at home, so I would be inclined towards giving them the advantage in taking the West and the #2 seed for the right to face the Tigers.

We'll see how this actually plays out. Mrs. X and I managed to secure tickets to Game 3 of the Cincinnati first round series so we're excited about that. Hopefully the results will be better than a couple of years ago where the Reds were swept out of the playoffs by the Phillies.

*UPDATE*

National League is set:

#1 Washington Nationals vs. Atlanta Braves/St. Louis Cardinals
#2 Cincinnati Reds vs. #3 San Francisco Giants

*UPDATE*

American League is now set as well:

#1 New York Yankees vs. Texas Rangers/Baltimore Orioles
#2 Oakland Athletics vs. #3 Detroit Tigers