 The White Sox won a coin flip late in the season which, by rule, awarded them home field in the game.The tie-breaker counted as the 163rd regular season game by both teams, with all events in the game added to regular season statistics.Prior to the start of the season, the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians, the division's top two finishers in the previous season, were predicted to be the strongest teams by journalists such as Tom Verducci of ESPN and Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus.