This Is All Happening So Fast.

Whew. Thank goodness the last two days are over. Before Sunday, there wasn't a single American League team that had clinched a postseason berth, in stark contrast to the National League, where four of the five spots had been decided for a few days. Then, with a single Rangers win against the Angels in the second game of a doubleheader Sunday, they, the Yankees and the Orioles all had their tickets for the playoffs punched simultaneously. The Tigers and Athletics joined them the following night, with the Detroit crew winning their second consecutive division title. So, just like that, the AL went from completely undecided as far as what teams would be playing in October, to completely full. But this is far from over.

There's reason to dance in Motown: the Tigers are the first division winners in 2012.

The Tigers are the only team that knows it will not be playing as a Wild Card. For the other four teams, it's not as simple. Bear with us here:

• If the Rangers lose to the Athletics tonight, they will be tied atop the AL West. If they lose to them again tomorrow, the A's will be crowned division champs and the Rangers will be a Wild Card for the first time in franchise history. If the Rangers win either of the next two games, though, they will win their third straight division title, another franchise first.
• If the Yankees beat the Red Sox tonight and the Orioles beat the Rays, the Birds will remain one game behind the Bombers. If the Yanks lose and the Orioles win, they will be tied. If the Orioles lose and the Yanks win, the Yanks win the division. If the Yanks lose and the Orioles win tonight, and both of those results repeat tomorrow, the Orioles will win the division. If the Yanks lose and the Orioles win tonight, but they both win or lose tomorrow, the two will meet in Baltimore on Thursday for game 163 to determine which one wins the division and which one will be the other Wild Card. 

Between these three, the Rangers are closing in on their third straight division title.

Once this is all figured out, there's still the matter of seeding for the playoffs to be sorted out:

• Again, the Tigers know for sure that they will be playing someone on Saturday. If everything stays the way it is right now, with the Yankees and Rangers winning their division and the Orioles and Athletics remaining as Wild Cards, the Tigers will face off against the Rangers in Arlington, while the winner of the play-in game will play the Yankees in the Bronx. 
• If the Athletics overtake the Rangers for the division, they would face the Tigers in Detroit while the Orioles would face the Rangers in Arlington for the chance to face the Yankees in New York.
• If the Orioles win the AL East over the Yankees, they would await the winner of the play-in game between the Yanks and the A's, which would be determined by the regular season record as the two tied in their season series, so the A's would play in the Bronx, while the Tigers would play the Rangers in Arlington.
• If both the Athletics and Orioles win their divisions, the Rangers would travel to New York to face the Yankees in the Wild Card game, the winner of which would face the Orioles or Athletics, depending on who has the better regular season record against the other between both pairs, and the one with the worse record between the latter pair would face the Tigers while the winner of the former pair would face the winner of the latter pair on their home turf. Sheesh.

A combination of loose and tight has helped the Yanks to their  50th postseason appearance in history.

But wait! There's more!

• If the Orioles and A's win their divisions, they will both have overcome teams that led their respective divisions by 10 or more games at one point this season: the Yankees led the Orioles by 10 games on July 18, and the Athletics were behind the Rangers by 13 games at the end of June (they were also 7 games behind the Angels at that point).
• With their division-clinching win last night, the Tigers have their second consecutive division title, the first time they've done something like that since Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer were knocking pitchers around in 1934 and 1935 (they beat the Cubs in the '35 World Series, just so you know)
• If the Rangers and Yankees face each other at any point this offseason, be it in the Wild Card game, the Division Series or the Championship Series, it will mean that the Rangers will have squared off against the Yanks 5 times out of the 6 times they have made the playoffs. That would tie them for the 4th most common intraleague playoff matchup of all time. Not bad for a team that had never won a postseason series before 2010...the Rangers, I mean.

The Orioles are flying high after clinching their first postseason berth in 15 years.

And just a little more to bring it all home...

• Remember September 28th, 2011? Already being hailed as one of the greatest single nights in Major League Baseball history, that night could be trumped by tomorrow night, October 3rd, 2012. As mentioned earlier, the Orioles and Athletics both have a chance to leapfrog the Yankees and Rangers and win their respective divisions, which would be, as far as we know, the only time in baseball history that two teams who had been tied or trailing in their divisions would both win the division on the same day, let alone the last day of the regular season. You can't make this stuff up.

Perhaps the most improbable playoff team this year, the Athletics just keep on winning.

It's always interesting when, after 158 out of 162 games in a season, there aren't any playoff spots determined in one of the two leagues. It's simply incredible that this isn't the case two days later. It's only frustrating when you have to cram two amazing days of baseball into a blog post. Fortunately (and unfortunately for any bloggers), there's even more to come.