October is
here and the MLB postseason is knocking on our doors. But we still have to figure
out the National League West and the American League wild cardholders. What if
at the end of the season, there is no clarity? What if after playing 162 games
in a year, the teams cannot fill the spots? We go to tiebreakers of course.

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Here is how
the MLB tie-breaking scenarios will be playing out if at all it comes to this.

The first
scenario is if the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers end the
regular season tied at the top of the National League, they will have to play
each other in a one-game tiebreaker on Monday, October 4 to determine the
winner. And the game will be in San Francisco as the Giants won in the
head-to-head season series.

The winner
will become the NL champion and will face the winner of the NL Wildcard game.
The loser will be the top Wild Card team and will face the St Louis Cardinals in the NL wild-card game on October 6.

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The American
League wild-card tiebreakers

Four teams
are fighting out for the two wild-card spots in the AL. These teams are the New
York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, the Seattle Mariners, and the Toronto Blue
Jays.

If the tiebreaker involves more than two teams, then teams will be assigned a letter
designation. A three-team tiebreaker would involve Teams A, B, and C and if a
fourth team is also involved, it will get the letter D. Tied teams are ordered
based on combined head-to-head winning percentages. And top teams get to pick
the letters they want.

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Team A
hosts Team B.

The winner
hosts Team C.

In the case of
a four-way, Team A plays Team B, and Team C plays Team D. The winners of those
two games meet in the AL Wild Card Game.