who does the winner of the wild-card game play
Major League Baseball Wild Card Game The Major League Baseball Wild Card Game is a play-in game which was added to the Major League Baseball postseason in 2012.[1] The addition keeps the playoff format similar to the three-tiered postseason format used from 1995 through 2011, but adds a second wild-card team. Two wild-card teams in each league play each other in a single-game playoff after the end of the regular season. The winner of the game advances to face the 1st seeded team in the Division Series. The home team for the wild-card game is the team with the better regular-season record (4th Seed).
Major League Baseball Wild Card Game The one-game, win-or-go-home Wild Card format favors teams with at least one dominant pitcher. In the twelve games played since the new Wild Card system began in 2012, five have been shutouts. In four of the seven others, the losing team scored 3 or fewer runs. Only the 2014 AL Wild Card game between the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics and the 2017 NL Wild Card game between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks featured high scoring[clarification needed] by both teams, with the Royals eventually winning 9-8 in 12 innings and the Diamondbacks winning 11-8 with the most runs scored in a Wild Card game. The margin of victory has been four runs or more in six of the twelve games played, and one run only twiceâ€”in the 2014 Royals-Athletics game and the 2018 Rockies-Cubs game.