how many games are in the major league baseball wildcard series
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).
World Series A structured playoff series began in 1969, when both the National and American Leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, East and West. The two division winners within each league played each other in a best-of-five League Championship Series to determine who would advance to the World Series. In 1985, the format changed to best-of-seven.
Major League Baseball postseason Until 1998, the Division Series rotated which of the three division champions would not have home-field advantage, with the wild card never having it. Now the two division winners with the best records in each league have home field, with the least-winning divisional winner and the wild card not having home field. The DS used a 2-3 format until 1998 and now uses a 2-2-1 format. This is seen as a more fair distribution of home-field advantage because previously under the 2-3 format, the team hosting the first two games had absolutely no chance of winning the series at home. With the current 2-2-1 format however, both teams have the home-field advantage in a sense. While one team gets to host three games (including the critical first and last game), the other team does get two chances out of three (games 3 and 4) of winning the series on its home field.
World Series Prior to 1969, the team with the best regular season win-loss record in each league automatically advanced to the World Series; since then each league has conducted a championship series (ALCS and NLCS) preceding the World Series to determine which teams will advance. As of 2017, the World Series has been contested 113 times, with the AL winning 65 and the NL winning 48.