They get to wait. That's what they wanted. That's what everybody wanted. It's the desired slot. That one-game do-or-die wild-card playoff might be entertaining for fans and television executives, but for teams, it's for the birds. This one really is for the birds: Baltimore's Orioles, who play Texas in Texas on Friday. The winner gets to host New York on Sunday. Why the Yankees must begin a Division Series on the road against a team they had a better record than, I have no idea. Apparently it has to do with the new, two wild-card playoff format, and the rushed nature of it, and the complicated travel schedule, and it is believed that hosting the final three games of a best-of-five series is preferable to opening with the first two. I don't know about that. Sure, it's nice to be assured that Game 5 will be in your place. But the home team holds, and they only have to take one of three on the road. I still don't completely see the logic. At the very least it's debatable. Welcome to baseball.

Manager Buck Showalter Getty Images

I guess we should argue now about whom the Yankees would rather play. The heart says Orioles because the fearless Rangers knocked the Yankees around in the playoffs a couple of years ago, and New York has had a mild anxiety about Texas ever since. But the head says, who knows? The Rangers had Cliff Lee then, and these Orioles, should they prevail, are going to be angry birds about having to schlep all the way to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for one crummy game. The playoffs are wide open, across both leagues—there's no obvious favorite, and if you had told anyone last spring that the no-name Oakland A's would evolve into the hot divisional champ, they'd have politely handed you a cold towel and told you to sit down on a park bench. The Yankees enter the postseason on a mild roll, having won seven of 10, plus four in a row, but the final three of those were against the Boston Red Sox, a forlorn circus that arrived in New York with a zombie manager and a roster of fish and small pets.

We are told that playoff parity is good, good, good, that it's great when every team has a shot. It does sound good. There is solid enthusiasm for the expanded wild card in September, and the expansion did keep a number of teams in the race, but the tension on the regular season's final night was a little off, a little dialed down, as all the contestants had previously qualified for the playoffs. The Yankees, Orioles, Texas, Oakland—Wednesday's results simply determined how to print the plane tickets. I'm not saying there were zero stakes—getting out of that wild-card crapshoot is a huge deal, but Wednesday lacked any delicious win-or-go-home nervousness. That tension got pushed to Friday. Wednesday was more like watching a bride and groom tinker with the seating chart for a wedding reception.

Ron Washington Getty Images

The other day I listened to ESPN Radio, and the host, Colin Cowherd, suggested that baseball has become a playoff-centric sport, that like NCAA basketball, its regular season is overlong and draggy, and you don't need to really start tuning in until the postseason, where you can be wildly entertained and satisfied. I'm not sure if this is totally true yet, but it's getting very close to true. The regular-season agnostic missed many phenomenal things this season—the auspicious rise of the A's (and Baltimore); the sublime rookie year of Angel Mike Trout; the triple crown by Detroit's Miguel Cabrera. It's hard to argue that the regular season was meaningless in Washington, Cincinnati or San Francisco. Or Boston, if you can find meaning in the darkness.

But now the slate is wiped clean and the public interest gets a full reboot, and it doesn't matter where you were in June or August or even the first Wednesday of October. The Yankees are expected to send CC Sabathia to the mound for Game 1 against Texas or Baltimore. New York has qualified for the playoffs every year but one since 1995, making appearances in 17 of the last 18 seasons. This is an impressive stretch, pretty much taken for granted. After the first pitch, nobody cares. It's a new season and new reality. A little confusing, but still good. Again, welcome to baseball.

Write to Jason Gay at