Continued: Baseball playoff date conflicts with Vikings-Packers

If the Twins finish the regular season tied atop the American League Central, like last season, it could create one doozy of a scheduling conflict at the Metrodome.

The Vikings and Packers are scheduled to play on "Monday Night Football" at the Dome on Oct. 5.

But if the Twins need a tiebreaker and secure home-field advantage for that game, they would take precedence at the Metrodome that night, forcing the Vikings and Packers to make other plans, according to Katy Feeney, Major League Baseball's senior vice president for scheduling and club relations.

"The NFL is fully aware of it," Feeney said Friday. "That's one of the reasons they schedule those as intradivision games, so they can flip [home sites] if they need to."

The Vikings are scheduled to play at Green Bay on Nov. 1, so the teams technically could trade home dates.

However, that would throw quite a wrench into one of the biggest regular-season home games in the Vikings' 49-year history, featuring Brett Favre's first appearance against the team with which he spent 16 seasons.

That means plenty of plans already have been made, including by ESPN, which will air the game, and thus moving the Monday night matchup would be extremely difficult. In fact, an NFL source with knowledge of the lease said there is no chance the Vikings game gets moved. That's because the NFL team's lease states it has priority over the Twins for any game other than a World Series game, a fact that conflicts with MLB's belief that the Twins would have priority in the Dome that night.

Last year, the Twins and White Sox finished the 162-game schedule with 88-74 records. At the time, MLB used coin flips to determine home-field advantage for tiebreakers, and the White Sox won the toss. So the tiebreaker was played Sept. 30 in Chicago. It actually was a Tuesday night game, since the White Sox needed to play a makeup game with the Tigers on the Monday after the season.

Feeney said MLB strongly prefers tiebreakers to be played on that Monday to get teams positioned for the division series, which open Wednesday.

"Also, getting the fields back to baseball shape is a little tougher than getting them in football shape," Feeney said.

This year, the Twins' chances of hosting a tiebreaker have improved. MLB changed the rules so home-field advantage for tiebreakers is determined by head-to-head record, not coin flips.

After Friday's victory, the Twins trail the first-place Tigers by three games in the standings but lead the season series 8-4, with six head-to-head meetings remaining. The Twins also lead their season series with the White Sox 9-6.

A home tiebreaker, and one major conflict with the Vikings, would bring a memorable conclusion to the Twins' 28-year era in the Metrodome. They won't have these issues next year at Target Field. Lester Bagley, Vikings vice president of public affairs and stadium development, said the team would have no comment.

• Tigers manager Jim Leyland< said he'd be hesitant to pitch around Joe Mauer with Jason Kubel batting cleanup. Entering the game, Kubel was 5-for-5 in his career off Tigers starter Rick Porcello. "So pick your poison," Leyland said.

• Leyland on the Twins' home-field advantage in the Dome: "A lot of people forget why it's been a tough place to play. They think it's the Metrodome. I think it's got something to do with the caliber of the Twins players. Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti and those guys, they were good players; they could play in a phone booth."