Dodgers & The Race For Home Field Advantage

With five days left in the regular season, the Dodgers hold a lead over both the Phillies and Cardinals in the race for best record in the National League.  Ideally, the Dodgers will wrap up best record some time over the next few days, but just in case they tie with one or both of these teams, here are the tiebreaker scenarios:

1) Dodgers Tie Phillies

The Dodgers would win this tiebreaker, because they beat the Phillies in the season series, 4-3.

2) Dodgers Tie Cardinals

The Cardinals would win this tiebreaker, because they beat the Dodgers in the season series, 5-2.

3) Dodgers Tie Phillies and Cardinals

The first tiebreaker in this rare scenario is head-to-head records against the other two teams.  The Phillies would win this tiebreaker:

After the top team is determined from the three teams, the other two are subject to the normal two-team tiebreaker, which starts with head-to-head record, which means the Cardinals would be the #2 seed, and the Dodgers the #3 seed.

In this scenario, the Phillies would play the Rockies, should they win the wild card, in the first round, leaving the Cardinals with home field advantage against the Dodgers because of their 5-2 edge in the season series. 

Should the Braves win the wild card in this scenario, the Cardinals would host them as the #2 seed, leaving the Phillies with home field advantage against the Dodgers by virtue of winning the three-team tiebreaker.  The Phillies cannot play the Braves in the first round since they are in the same division.

Essentially, the Dodgers magic number over both clubs is three (since the Dodgers would win a tiebreaker with Philadelphia).

Here's a look at the remaining schedule for all three teams:

The Dodgers are 48-30 at home this season, and 45-35 on the road.