The Royals will play the Orioles in Baltimore for the Wild Card series

These O’s ain’t Royal!

The Royals are headed to the playoffs, but now they know where they are headed - Baltimore.

Kansas City clinched the #5 seed on Sunday by virtue of their win over the Braves while the Tigers lost their game to the White Sox. The Royals and Tigers finish with identical 86-76 records, but the Royals won the season series, and earn the tiebreaker.

The Wild Card series format will be a best-of-three series with all three games at the site of the higher-seeded team. So the Royals will not host any playoff games unless they advance past Baltimore to the American League Divisional Series. The lower-seeded team has won five of the eight Wild Card series since they implemented the new format in 2023. The Royals announced their starting rotation for the series earlier today with Cole Ragans to go in Game 1, Seth Lugo in Game 2, and Michael Wacha in Game 3.

The winner of the Royals/Orioles series will play the #1 seed New York Yankees in a best-of-five series with a traditional 2-2-1 home-field format. The #6 seed Tigers will travel to Houston to play the #3 seed Astros, with the winner playing the #2 seed Cleveland Guardians.

The Royals will play Game 1 on Tuesday, October 1 at 3:08 CT on ESPN 2. Game 2 will be Wednesday, October 2 at 3:38 CT on ESPN. Game 3, if necessary, will be on Thursday, October 3 on ESPN with a time to be deterrmined.

The Orioles won four of the six games against the Royals, including two of three at Camden Yards in Baltimore back in April. But in one of those losses, the Royals were one out away from winning the game before Will Smith gave up a game-winning two-run single in the ninth. In another loss, the Orioles broke a 4-4 ninth-inning tie with a two-run home run by Jordan Westburg off Nick Anderson.

The Orioles finished with a 91-71 record, but were just 40-41 in their last 81 games. Their 5.51 bullpen ERA in September is the third-worst in baseball and they released former closer Craig Kimbrel earlier this month. They also have a stable of terrific young hitters who last year were swept in their first playoff series since 2016.

Royals fans may remember facing the Orioles in the playoffs before - Kansas City swept Baltimore in the 2014 American League Championship Series. It’s also the second time a Kansas City team will face a Baltimore team in the playoffs this year - the Chiefs defeated the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game earlier this year.

In the National League, the Braves loss today gives them an 88-72 record, an identical record to the Mets and tied with the Diamondbacks at 89-73 for the final two Wild Card spots. The Braves and Mets will have to play a doubleheader in Atlanta on Monday to make up games postponed last week due to Hurricane Helene. If either team is swept, they are out of the playoffs and the winning team and the Diamondbacks are both in. If the two teams split, they are both in and the Diamondbacks are out.