Royals keeping Oct. 2 open for Wild Card

KANSAS CITY -- Mark your calendar, Kansas City fans. If the Royals earn an American League Wild Card berth, they'll be playing on Wednesday, Oct. 2, for the chance to advance.

Any necessary tiebreaker games would be played on Monday, Sept. 30, the day after the regular season ends. The National League Wild Card game is set for Tuesday, Oct. 1.

The Royals have a good patch of ground to make up, but manager Ned Yost believes his team is staying focused on its postseason chances.

"It's a bit impressive," Yost said. "I think everybody feels good about where we're at right now and has a lot of energy with the way that we're playing. And they've got a one-mindset focus and they do it as a group. You've got to have everybody buy into that and our guys are doing a great job of that."

As for himself, Yost insisted that he's not paying that much attention to how the Royals stand in the Wild Card race.

"No. What good does it do me?" Yost said. "I can pay attention to it all I want and if we don't win a ballgame that night, what difference does it make? So, I stay focused on what we need to do."

Major League Baseball announced the postseason schedule on Tuesday. If the World Series goes seven games, it would end on Oct. 31.