| Part of a series on the |
| Major League Baseball postseason |
|---|
| Wild Card Series |
| Division Series |
| League Championship Series |
| World Series |
| Teams |
The Wild Card Series (formerly known as Wild Card Game from 2012 to 2019 and in 2021) are games that serve as the opening round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) postseason. A single wild card game was instituted in 2012. This became a best-of-three playoff wild card series in 2020 as a one-off, and became permanent (albeit with fewer teams playing than in the 2020 series) starting in the 2022 season.[1][2][3]
There are two wild card series each, in the American League (AL) and National League (NL). The lowest-seeded division winner and three wild card teams in each league play in a best-of-three series after the end of the regular season. The winners of each league's wild card series advance to face the two-best division winners in that league's Division Series. This expansion of the postseason abolished any regular-season-extending tie-breaker games.
- ^ Jayson Stark (March 2, 2012). "The new MLB postseason". ESPN.com.
- ^ "Everything you need to know about '22 season". MLB.com. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
- ^ Castrovince, Anthony (October 4, 2022). "Complete history of baseball's postseason formats". mlb.com. Major League Baseball. Retrieved March 14, 2023.