League Championship Series
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Part of a series on the |
Major League Baseball postseason |
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Wild Card Series |
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Division Series |
League Championship Series |
World Series |
Teams |
The League Championship Series (LCS) is the
History
The League Championship Series was created in 1969, when both the National League and the American League increased in size from ten teams to twelve with the addition, via expansion, of the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres to the former and the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots (now the Milwaukee Brewers of the NL) to the latter. Both leagues then formed Eastern and Western Divisions, the first-place teams from which faced off in the LCS.
For its first sixteen seasons, the League Championship Series were
In
Since 1995, the LCS has matched up the winners of the Division Series, which were added when both leagues realigned into three divisions.
Until 1998, the home-field advantage in the LCS was allocated on a rotating basis between the two (three from 1995 through 1997) division champions; since 1998, that advantage is given to the team with the better regular season record, except that if a division champion faces a wild card team, the division champion always gets home-field advantage regardless of record.
As of 2024, all thirty MLB teams have reached the LCS at least once. The Houston Astros and Milwaukee Brewers are the only teams to have played in both the ALCS and NLCS.[3] Four teams have never lost an LCS: the Colorado Rockies (won in 2007), the Miami Marlins (won as the Florida Marlins in 1997 and 2003), the Tampa Bay Rays (won in 2008 and 2020), and the Texas Rangers (won in 2010, 2011, and 2023).
See also
References
- ^ "Owners propose best-of-7 league playoffs". Times Daily. (Florence, Alabama). Associated Press. March 22, 1985. p. 4B.
- ^ "League playoffs expand to seven games". Spokesman-Review. (Spokane, Washington). staff and wire reports. April 4, 1985. p. C2.
- ^ "Team Batting Game Finder:In the LCS Game 1, From 1903 to 2018, Team Won, sorted by most recent date". Baseball Reference. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
External links
- "League Championship Series Overview". MLB.com.
- League Championship Series at Baseball Almanac