Baseball playoffs start Oct. 1; World Series to begin Oct. 22

Baseball's World Series gets a midweek start for the second straight year, capping a postseason that is set to begin Oct. 1.

The championship between the winners of the American League and National League pennants will begin in the AL city on Wednesday night, Oct. 22, according to a schedule released Wednesday by Major League Baseball. If the series goes the maximum seven games without rainouts, the champion will be crowned on Thursday night, Oct. 30.

The playoffs begin Oct. 1 with three games in the best-of- five division series, two in the NL and one in the AL. League championship series play starts Thursday, Oct. 9, in the NL and the following day in the AL. The best-of-seven matchups are set to conclude in the NL on Saturday, Oct. 18, a day before the AL finale.

One-game playoffs to break ties for division or wild-card berths would take place Monday, Sept. 29, a day after the regular-season concludes.

That day also has been reserved for the third game of last weekend's three-game series between the Cubs and Houston Astros, which was moved because of Hurricane Ike.

The first two games were played Sept. 15-16 in Milwaukee and the third game will be made up only if it affects the pennant races. The Cubs lead the NL Central by nine games over Milwaukee, while the Astros trail the New York Mets by three games for the NL wild card, which goes to the second-place team with the best record.

Baseball moved the start of the World Series to Wednesday last year after Saturday starts from 1985-2006, trying to capture larger midweek television audiences on News Corp.'s Fox Network and provide more days to handle rainouts. The Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies in four games in 2007 for their second championship in four years.