And the wild card teams played against each other in a play-in game – the MLB Wild Card Game – the winner of which would then advance to the Division Series and play the team with the best record in their league.
However, an expanding number of teams in MLB over the years made making the playoffs increasingly difficult.
This assured that the team with the second-best record in its league would qualify for the postseason even if it was not a division champion.
The owners decided that the winners (in each division) of each "half" of the abbreviated season would make the playoffs, with the caveat that if the same team won both halves then that division's team with the second-best record from the second half would enter the playoffs as a wild card.
As a result of the hastily contrived format, the Cincinnati Reds finished the regular season with the best record in all of baseball (66-42 .611) but failed to qualify for the playoffs because they finished 0.5 game behind the Dodgers in the first half and 1.5 games behind the Astros in the second half.
Starting with the 2022 season, MLB added a third wild card team in each league.
[6] Due to the expansion of the postseason beginning in 2022, the regular season tie-breaker game format has been eliminated.