First off, before acting like it’s the off-season next week let’s acknowledge that some teams will be playing beyond next Wednesday afternoon. They are called “post-season teams” and archaeologists are hard at work trying better to understand this phenomenon.
With the new format that includes a third wild card team and “best of 3” first round series, as a way to avoid further lengthening the post-season MLB has eliminated any and all head-to-head tie breakers commonly known as “game 163”.
This is, in my ever so humble opinion, a very bad decision. I think it’s fine to use season series matchups and the like to determine who gets one wild card spot and who gets another one, but in two instances I believe it’s better to have winners determined by an actual tie breaking game and it’s quite possible both scenarios will surface this year:
One is a tie for the division crown.