The St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers locked up division titles on Sunday, the last day of the regular season, while the Oakland Athletics earned a wild-card berth into the postseason.
The Cardinals secured the top spot in the National League Central when the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the Cincinnati Reds.
St. Louis will play the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers in a best-of-five Division Series that starts on Friday.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, will play a one-off wild-card play-in game at home against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday, with the winner moving on to an NL Division Series showdown against the NL East Champion Washington Nationals.
In the American League, the Detroit Tigers won the Central when they beat the Minnesota Twins, pushing the second-place Kansas City Royals to a wild-card game against Oakland on Tuesday.
Oakland beat the Texas Rangers on Sunday to edge the Seattle Mariners for the second and final AL wild card.
The winner of the Kansas City-Oakland game will advance to an AL Division Series against the Western Champion Los Angeles Angels starting on Thursday.
The other AL Division Series, which also starts on Thursday, will match the Tigers against the AL East Champion Baltimore Orioles.
The Athletics used a shutout by right-hander Sonny Gray to beat the Rangers in Arlington, Texas.
Right fielder Josh Reddick and first baseman Stephen Vogt had run-scoring hits in the second for Oakland, which added two runs in the ninth.
It was all more than enough for Gray (14-10), who gave up six hits, walked none and struck out five.
Nick Martinez (5-12) suffered the loss, giving up two runs on four hits while striking out two in 5 2/3 innings for the Rangers (67-95), who closed the season winning 13 of their last 16 games.
After giving up two runs in the second, Martinez set down the next 13 hitters, a streak intact when he was relieved by left-handed pitcher Derek Holland in the sixth inning. They combined to retire 17 straight and 19 of 20 from the second to the eighth.
Gray wasn’t having much trouble, either, looking more like himself after a tough stretch in his previous 10 starts.
After being staked to a 2-0 lead in the first, he responded by retiring the Rangers in order in a 10-pitch shutdown third inning. Texas put runners at the corners with no outs in the fifth, but Gray struck out designated hitter Luis Sardinas and then got out of the inning by inducing a double play grounder, 5-4-3, out of first baseman Adam Rosales.
After that fifth inning, Gray retired nine of the next 10 hitters.
Gray recorded 27 outs in 103 pitches, which is all the more impressive considering he posted a 1-6 record with a 4.64 ERA in his last 10. Gray was 12-3 with a 2.65 ERA in his first 21 starts.