Baseball playoffs begin Friday - UPI.com Oakland A's closer Grant Balfour gets a hug from Manager Bob Melvin after sweeping the Texas Rangers to take the American League West at the Coliseum in Oakland, California on October 3, 2012. The A's took the game 12-5. UPI/Terry Schmitt WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Major League Baseball playoffs open Friday with two wild-card games, a new level in the post-season schedule. Each league had two teams with the best records of non-division winners qualify for a one-game play-in for the Division Series. The baseball playoffs open with a 5 p.m. EDT Friday game in which the St. Louis Cardinals play the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta in the National League wild-card game. The Baltimore Orioles play the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, for the American League wild-card game at 8:30 p.m. The Cardinals are the defending World Series champions, having eked into the 2011 playoff as a wild-card team as Atlanta was eliminated on the season's final day. St. Louis beat Texas in the World Series. Texas also lost the 2010 World Series. The Orioles were 69-93 in 2011 but challenged for the 2012 AL East title until the final day of the regular season in returning to the playoffs for the first time since 1997. The Baltimore-Texas winner advances to the best-of-five Division Series against the AL East champion New York Yankees, which begins Sunday in the wild-card winner's stadium. The other AL division winners -- Oakland and Detroit -- begin their Division Series at 6 p.m. EDT Saturday. The Washington Nationals take on the NL wild-card winner beginning Sunday. No Washington baseball team has made the playoffs since 1933. NL Central champion Cincinnati plays a Division Series against West winning San Francisco starting Saturday. The winners of the Division Series move to the League Championship Series, both best-of-seven, with the AL Series beginning Oct. 13 and the NL version to open Oct. 14. The 108th World Series is scheduled to begin in the NL champion home stadium Oct. 24. If necessary, Game 7 is to be played Nov. 1.