On Friday, Major League Baseball officially announced that the 2012 playoffs would be expanded by two teams. The two wild card teams that are added at the end of the season will play each other in a one-game playoff and then the winner of that game will play the team's playoff team with the best regular season record. The twist is that the team who wins the one-game playoff won't be going on the road to face the top seeded team, but the top seeded team will be going on the road.
Yet, for the first time since 1995-1997, the team with the worst record will host the first two games of the best-of-five division series before playing the final three games (if necessary) at the site of the team with the best record.
Houston Astros manager Brad Mills, according to the team's official site, is one of the league managers that is happy about the league's decision to expand the playoffs, saying that it will be good for the fans.
"It's going to be good for the all the fans," said Mills, who spent six years as bench coach of the Red Sox before coming to Houston. "Even though you're adding one more spot, you're creating a lot of interest for more teams in both leagues. I'm definitely in favor of that. If I'm not mistaken, it's going to be a one-game playoff, and those are always fun."
It will be interesting to see how the new system plays out at the end of the season and which teams benefit from it and which teams don't. For now, though, teams like the Astros have bigger things to worry about.
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