MLB Wild Card Games Set For Action This Week

After a down-to-the-wire weekend involving numerous teams to close out the 2015 MLB regular season, both the AL and NL Wild Card Games have been set for this week. The New York Yankees and Houston Astros will square off in the AL Wild Card Game which will be held tomorrow, Oct. 6, at Yankee Stadium, while the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates will face each other in the NL Wild Card game on Wednesday, October 7, at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

These games come after a wild finish involving the AL West division with the Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, and Los Angeles Angels not knowing where they would be ending up once the dust settled. With the Rangers beating the Angels in a 9-2 win, this helped the Astros clinch the last wild-card spot even though they lost their regular season finale with the Arizona Diamondbacks in a 5-3 bout. If the Angels were to win, it would have resulted in Houston missing the playoffs. The New York Yankees already clinched their spot with a win last Thursday night over the Boston Red Sox.

The NL final games were more straightforward with both the Pirates and Cubs winning their respective games with the Pirates’ victory resulting in home field advantage for the wild-card game with the Cubs.

Probable pitching matchups for the AL game will be Yankees’ ace Masahiro Tanaka against Astros’ Dallas Keuchel while the NL game sees the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta facing the Pirates’ Gerrit Cole. The AL winner will be pinned against the Kansas City Royals while the NL winner will be up against the St. Louis Cardinals in the next round of the postseason.