Then, trailing 2-0 in the seventh inning, shortstop Bucky Dent hit a 3-run homer off Mike Torrez over the Green Monster, and the Yankees went on to complete their amazing comeback and repeat as champs. But the Yanks turned it around, won 7 of the last 8 games between the two rivals, and forced a tiebreaker game at Fenway Park. Yankees at Red Sox, 1978: The defending World Series champion Yankees had a dysfunctional '78 season, and at one point in the summer were 14 games behind Boston in the AL East. MLB playoff primer: What you need to know as baseball's longest postseason nears The NL used a best-of-three series until 1969, otherwise all the tie-breakers were one game. This has happened 16 times, most recently in 2018 when the Dodgers beat the Rockies to settle the NL West. Before expansion in 1969, when an extra playoff layer was added, the tiebreaker meant deciding which team would win the pennant and go to the World Series. Starting in 1946, baseball added extra games at the end of the season to resolve ties and settle postseason berths. It's all very technical and antiseptic, but it has erased a bit of the game's lore. If that doesn’t work, the process continues with more and more convoluted solutions until a resolution is reached. The first tiebreaker is the head-to-head record between the two teams involved. If that doesn't settle things, the team with the best intra-divisional record will win the tiebreaker. In the interest of adding extra wild-card teams to the playoffs for 2022's postseason, the tiebreaker games have been eliminated in favor of a tiebreaker system like the one the NFL uses, and what MLB's relied on recently to determine home-field advantage. © 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.Until this season, Major League Baseball relied on extra games when teams were tied for a postseason spot at the end of the regular season. Since the Yankees lose tiebreakers to both the Red Sox and Blue Jays, they’d play that game on the road. If the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays tie for the two wild-card slots, the Blue Jays would face the Red Sox Monday at Fenway Park, with the winner nabbing one wild card, and the loser would face the Yankees Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, with the winner getting the other spot. The Yankees swept the Red Sox last weekend at Fenway. If they tie the Blue Jays and Mariners for the second wild-card spot, the Yankees will host the Mariners on Monday, and if they win, they’d host the Blue Jays on Tuesday for the right to play the Red Sox Wednesday at Fenway in the wild-card game. The Yankees also made their selections in these other scenarios: The Yankees lose such a tiebreaker against the Red Sox and Blue Jays and win it against the Mariners, so there’d be a wild-card game at Yankee Stadium Tuesday only if it’s Mariners-Yankees. The winners of the two games advance to Tuesday’s AL wild-card game, to be played at the site of the club with the better head-to-head record. The Mariners then wound up with the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. Aaron Judge celebrates after driving in two runs against the Red Sox. They opted to go to Fenway to face the Red Sox, whom they swept in Boston last weekend. Then the Yankees, as the third seed, got to select their opponent. Not surprisingly, as the top two seeds, the Red Sox and Blue Jays chose to host the play-in games. The teams are seeded based on their collective head-to-head records against the other three clubs, which results in this: That would occur if the Yankees lose to the Rays, the Red Sox lose to the Nationals, the Blue Jays beat the Orioles and the Mariners beat the Angels. On Saturday, the four teams involved in the unprecedented wild-card hunt made their selections for the potential of all of them finishing with identical 91-71 records. A four-way tie for the American League wild card would send the Yankees to Fenway Park on Monday to take on the Red Sox for a 163rd game and the right to be an actual wild card, with the Blue Jays and Mariners facing off in Toronto in the other contest.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |