Baseball playoff matchups coming to the wire

The major league playoffs may end up starting a little sooner than planned.

The wild-card races in both leagues have come down to the final two days of the regular season, with one game separating the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals in the National League and the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays tied in the American League.

Any tie would result in a one-game playoff Thursday. Based on their advantages in head-to-head competition during the regular season, St. Louis and Tampa Bay would play host to those games at times to be determined.

The wild-card races aren’t the only things left unsettled. Although the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL and New York Yankees in the AL have clinched best record in each league, who they will play host to in the division series is still to be determined.

Here are the possibilities:

National League: If the Cardinals are the wild-card team, the division series matchups would be the East champion Phillies versus the Cardinals and the Central champion Milwaukee Brewers versus the West champion Arizona Diamondbacks. If the Braves are the wild-card team, the matchups depend on which team finishes with the better overall record, the Brewers or the Diamondbacks. Since the Phillies and Braves are from the same division, they cannot meet in the division series. The Phillies would face the division champion with the worst overall record.

American League: The Yankees won’t be facing the wild-card team, because Boston and Tampa Bay are also from the East. West division champion Texas started Monday with a one-game lead over Central division champion Detroit. If that holds up, the Rangers would meet the wild-card team, either the Red Sox or Rays, and the Yankees would face the Tigers in the division series.