New York, NY – The 2012 Major League Baseball postseason will open on the first Friday of October with a pair of newly created wild card games.
This marks the second consecutive year the postseason will begin on a Friday.
The inaugural wild card games, set for October 5, are a new feature for this year's playoffs and will pit the two best non-division winners in each league in a one-game, sudden-death matchup. Each winner will advance to the best-of- five Division Series.
It's the first change to MLB's postseason since the six-division, eight-team format was adopted for the 1995 season.
A pair of Division Series matchups will begin on Saturday, October 6, each involving two division champions. The wild card winners will face the other division champions in a series that starts Sunday, October 7. Game 2 of the other two series will also be played that Sunday.
Potential Game 5s of the Division Series would be Thursday, October 11 and Friday, October 12. There will not be a travel day between Games 4 and 5, as only this year's Division Series will feature a 2-3 format. The team with home-field advantage will host the final three games of the series. The 2-2-1 format will return next year.
The American League Championship Series will start Saturday, October 13, while the National League Championship Series will open the following day.
Game 1 of the World Series is scheduled for Wednesday, October 24 in the park of the National League champion. The series shifts to the AL champion's field for Game 3 on Saturday, October 27. Game 7, if necessary, would be Thursday, November 1 in the NL city.
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