To paraphrase Woody Allen, a massive tie scenario is like shark. It has to keep moving forward, or it dies, and what we have on our hands here, is a dead shark. At least one on life support. The Orioles losing to the Rays and the Royals losing to Texas set the six-way tie way back, even though the most wins for a six way tie remains at 88:
- Royals 7-1
- Orioles 7-1
- Yankees 6-1
- Rangers 4-4
- Indians 3-4
- Rays 3-5
One of the big problems with the six way tie is that teams are running out of opportunities to pull the leaders back to the pack. The probability of the six way flew up to 1 in 156,000. We’ll see what happens today, but the six way is pretty much dead, and the four way between the Yankees, Rangers, Indians, and Rays stands at one in 777.
Luckily, the three-way looks good at about one in 32. In fact, because the Rays, Indians, and Rangers no longer play each other, all outcomes that would lead to Rays losing one more game than the Rangers and Indians are possible. So Texas can go 8-0, Cleveland 7-0, and the Rays 7-1, but the opposite is true, where we could get the three-way tie if the Rays go 0-8. Then again, if the Rays go 0-8, the Yankees might catch them as well.
In the last two days, the Cardinals gained a game on both Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, making that three-way tie less likely:
- Reds 5-2
- Pirates 4-3
- Cardinals 2-5
This scenario assumes the Reds go no better than 3-1 against the Pirates. The chance of this three-way drops to 1 in 87, nearly double yesterday’s odds. We won’t even get a playoff-game if the Reds and Pirates tie for the two wild cards, as best record head-to-head gets home field advantage.
So to help the massive tie scenario along, here’s what I’d like to see on Saturday:
- The New York Yankees defeat San Francisco
- Baltimore beats Tampa Bay
- Cleveland loses to Houston
- Cincinnati defeats Pittsburgh
- Kansas City defeats Texas
- St. Louis falls to Milwaukee
Start the CPR!