Wild Card Series

The lowest-seeded division winner and three wild card teams in each league play in a best-of-three series after the end of the regular season.

Under the format adopted in 2022, six teams in each league are assigned seeds for the postseason.

6, play in two best-of-3 wild card series, with the higher seed hosting all games.

With the adoption of MLB's new collective bargaining agreement in November 2011, baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced that a new playoff system would begin within the next two years; the change was ultimately put into place in 2012.

The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays each have the most appearances with five, and have the most wins during the Wild Card round with three each.

The Milwaukee Brewers, the Athletics, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Toronto Blue Jays each have the most losses during the Wild Card round, with three each.

Through the 2021 postseason, Wild Card Game winners have gone on to compile an overall 9–9 record in League Division Series, with Wild Card Game winners going 4–5 in the ALDS and 5–4 in the NLDS.

Two Wild Card Game winners have gone on to win the World Series (the 2014 Giants and the 2019 Nationals).

The 2014 postseason featured the first series sweeps involving a Wild Card Game winner; both in favor of the AL Wild Card Kansas City Royals, who swept the Los Angeles Angels in the ALDS and the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS.

In the sixteen games played since the new Wild Card system began in 2012, five have been shutouts.

There have only been two games in which the losing team scored more than six runs: the 2017 NL Wild Card Game in which the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Colorado Rockies by a score of 11–8; and the 2014 AL Wild Card Game which featured the Kansas City Royals beating the Oakland Athletics 9–8 in 12 innings.

Three games have ended in walk-off victory for the home team, with the 2021 NL edition being the only one in regulation.