OK, so check this out: The Indians-Tigers game set for Thursday at Comerica Park in Detroit was rained out and will be played on Monday if it is necessary to determine either the Tigers’ Wild Card fate or the Indians’ home-field advantage status for the postseason.

Because of that, and because four teams enter play Friday within two games of the top AL Wild Card spot, there’s a longshot scenario wherein the Tigers would play what would certainly rank as the strangest and most difficult postseason stretch in baseball history.

Picture this: Come Sunday, one team — let’s say the Blue Jays, for the sake of this hypothetical — has pulled safely ahead of the pack to take the first AL Wild Card, but the Orioles have gone 1-2, the Mariners have gone 3-0, and the Tigers have gone 2-1. In that situation the Tigers would need to beat the Indians in their makeup game in Detroit on Monday to clinch their share of a three-team tie for the second Wild Card spot.

In the event of a three-team tie for the second Wild Card spot, the three teams choose from A, B, and C designations. Team A hosts Team B, then the winner of that game hosts Team C to determine which club moves into the proper Wild Card game. Based on the clubs’ head-to-head records, the Tigers have the last choice of designations, so there’s no doubt they’d end up as Team B — the one that needs to win a road game then a home game, a far more difficult haul than Team A (two straight home games) or Team C (one road game).

The AL Wild Card game is currently scheduled for Tuesday, which would not be feasible in this scenario. The soonest it could be played, assuming no double-headers, would be Thursday, when the ALDS is scheduled to start. And let’s say, for the sake of this thought exercise, that the Mariners chose the Team C designation and the Orioles become team A.

So in this one very unlikely scenario I am now very much rooting for, the Tigers would play Sunday in Atlanta then travel to Detroit to play the makeup game against the Indians on Monday. They’d next go to Baltimore to face the Orioles on Tuesday, and if they win that, back to Detroit to face the Mariners on Wednesday. If they win that game, they’d head to Toronto to face the Blue Jays in the official Wild Card game, and if they win that, head immediately to Texas or Boston to start the delayed ALDS on Friday.

There is a real route by which the Tigers can end the season and open the postseason by playing six games in six days against six different teams without ever playing in the same city on consecutive nights. It’d be so wild and awesome.