http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/sports/baseball/mlb-playoff-match-ups.html 2016-10-03 01:30:26 One Season Ends and Another Begins: Baseball Playoff Matchups Are Set The postseason will begin on Tuesday with the American League wild-card game between Baltimore and Toronto. The Mets host the Giants on Wednesday. === It took until the last day of the season, but Major League Baseball finally set its playoff picture on Sunday. The Toronto Blue Jays will face the Baltimore Orioles in the American League wild-card game on Tuesday, and the The Orioles clinched a spot by beating the Yankees, 5-2, in the Bronx, while the Blue Jays clinched when the Detroit Tigers lost in Atlanta, 1-0. The Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-1, to earn their wild card. The last time they got one, in 2014, they went on to win the World Series. This was the second year in a row that Major League Baseball scheduled all of the games on the season’s final day to begin simultaneously. It makes for a 15-game, roughly three-hour blitz to the finish of a marathon six-month schedule. The day began with all of the division races settled. In the American League, the champions in the West, the Texas Rangers, will have home field throughout the postseason. The Boston Red Sox won the East and will face the Cleveland Indians, who won the Central, in their division series. The Chicago Cubs won the National League Central and will have home-field advantage throughout the N.L. playoffs. The Washington Nationals, who won the N.L. East, will have home-field advantage in their first-round matchup with the West champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers. The A.L. division series are scheduled to begin Thursday, in Texas and either Cleveland or Baltimore. The N.L. series will start the next day in Chicago and Washington. The Rangers and the Cubs will play the winners of the wild-card games, but only one of the four wild-card winners had been decided before Sunday. The Mets — battered by injuries but buoyed by a late surge — clinched a home wild-card game with their victory in Philadelphia on Saturday. They drew a challenging assignment in the Giants, who won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 and will start Madison Bumgarner, an extraordinary postseason performer, against Noah Syndergaard. Sunday also was a day for goodbyes. Boston’s David Ortiz played his final regular-season game, and the Red Sox announced that they plan to retire his No. 34. The Yankees held a ceremony to honor Mark Teixeira, their first baseman for the last eight years, who is retiring after 14 seasons. The Phillies also saluted the slugger Ryan Howard, the last link to their 2008 championship team, whose option they will decline after the season. The Atlanta Braves closed their stadium, Turner Field, after only 20 years there. The Braves, who are moving to a new park in suburban Cobb County, never won a World Series game at Turner Field, which was fitted for baseball after it hosted the 1996 Olympics. But past stars like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz came back for the finale. The Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Enberg called his last game for the San Diego Padres, on the road in Arizona. And Vin Scully, widely considered the finest baseball broadcaster in history, concluded his 67-year career as the voice of the Dodgers at their game in San Francisco. The Giants dedicated a plaque in the visiting broadcast booth at AT&T Park to commemorate Scully’s final game, with Willie Mays visiting him for the occasion. Scully, 88, grew up in New York and rooted for the Giants as a boy.