With 12 games remaining in the season, the National League Wild Card race is extremely tight between the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Currently, the Giants and the Cardinals are tied for the second Wild Card spot, and they both trail the Mets by one game in the Wild Card standings. Long story short, there is a very real possibility there will be tiebreaker games required to settle out who will get the right to play in the National League Division Series against the Chicago Cubs. Here is a breakdown:
Mets and Giants Tie
As the Mets took the season series 4-3 from the Giants, they would have the tiebreaker for home field advantage. If the Mets and Giants tie for the Wild Card spot with the Cardinals finishing third, the Wild Card Game will be played at Citi Field on Wednesday, October 5th. In the event the Cardinals finish ahead of the Mets and the Giants in the Wild Card standings, the Mets will host the Giants at Citi Field for a one game playoff on October 3rd with the winner of that game flying to St. Louis to play the Wild Card Game on October 5th in St. Louis.
Mets and Cardinals Tie
With the Mets and Cardinals splitting their season series, the next tiebreaker is division record. As it stands today, the Cardinals have the better division record having gone 36-30 against the Central whereas the Mets have gone 33-31 against the East. With the Mets only having division games remaining, the Mets will definitely have a worse division record than the Cardinals do in the event the two teams have the same record. Accordingly, in the event the Mets and Cardinals are tied in the standings, the Mets will have to play a tiebreaker game or the Wild Card Game in St. Louis.
Three Way Tie
This is where it starts to get a little complicated. Keeping it as simple as possible to start, as the Mets and the Cardinals have won their season series against the Giants, the Giants will temporarily be deemed to be the second Wild Card with the Mets and the Cardinals needing to decide who is the first Wild Card. Here is a breakdown to explain what follows as easily as possible:
Of course, the Mets could avoid all of this by making sure they win enough games to ensure they win the first Wild Card and play the Wild Card Game at Citi Field on October 5, 2016.
