Massive Tie Scenario

On the final scheduled day of the season, there remains just one three-way tie possible, involving the Orioles, Blue Jays, and Tigers.

To get a three-way tie, the Tigers need to win, while the Blue Jays and Orioles lose. In that case, the Tigers play Cleveland on Monday, and Detroit needs to win that game as well. As it turns out, that makeup game may be needed by Cleveland for home field advantage in the ALDS, so it could turn out to be a very serious game.

There is also the chance that one of Baltimore or Toronto loses, and the Tigers win. In that case, the Tigers would play Monday, and if they win, there would be a one-game playoff on Tuesday to determine the second wild card, pushing the AL Wild Card game back to Wednesday.

I drew up this handy spreadsheet to explain what can happen today. There are eight combinations of wins and losses for the three teams in question. In four of them, the Blue Jays host the Orioles on Tuesday in the wild Card game. In one of them, the Orioles host the Blue Jays on Wednesday. In two of them, the Tigers have to play on Monday, with a possible playoff for the second wild card on Tuesday. In one of them, the Tigers play on Monday with a three-way a possibility. The probability of the three-way tie actually happening is 0.0724, or about 1 in 14.

I will also note that if the Giants lose and the Cardinals win, there will be a one-game playoff on Monday to determine the second wild card in the NL. It is still possible that when play ends this evening, there could be four more regular season games!

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2cKbk2k