With the 2011 Major League Baseball playoffs scheduled to start Saturday, the Brewers know this much: they will be participating.

As for who they'll face and where the game will take place, that's still up in the air.

Manager Ron Roenicke was hoping that he'd have at least one of those questions answered by the time he reported to the park Wednesday for the regular-season finale.

Roenicke had hoped to have home-field advantage locked up in order to make for a short day for starting pitcher Zack Greinke, give his bullpen a little work in the hopes of staying sharp and give his regulars a little bit of a breather to stay fresh.

The Brewers held up their part of the bargain Tuesday, riding three Prince Fielder home runs to a 6-4 victory over the Pirates at Miller Park. The victory moved them 1.5 games ahead of the Diamondbacks in the race for the No. 2 spot in the National League – guaranteeing that the first two games of the NLDS would be played at Miller Park.

As the players were celebrating their 95th victory of the season, tying the single-season franchise record, they had a close eye on the Diamondbacks, who were facing the Dodgers at Chase Field in Phoenix.

The game was tied when Roenicke came into the Miller Park Media Interview Room after the game.

"I was hoping I'd come in here and you'd have good news for me," Roenicke told the gathered scribes when asked if he'd stick around to watch the game.

"I'm sure we'd like to see the Dodgers win today. It'd make it a lot easier on what we're going to have to do tomorrow."

So much for that.

If Roenicke and the Brewers did hang around to watch, they probably went home pretty unhappy as the Diamondbacks rallied in the 10th inning to beat Los Angeles, 7-6, and keep the pressure on Milwaukee.

Roenicke made the decision to start Greinke Wednesday in order to use Yovani Gallardo in Game 1 of the playoffs but also to keep Greinke, who last pitched Saturday, from waiting a week in between starts.

Had the Brewers secured home-field, Greinke's outing Wednesday would have been short, allowing the Brewers to turn to him again Sunday in Game 2. Now, with the team needing a victory to clinch home-field, Greinke could see extended action, potentially making him unavailable again until Game 3, which would be played next Tuesday.

"Zack doesn't want to go seven or eight days without pitching," Roenicke said. "He said he'd much rather come back on three days rest than do that.

"That's why I talk about it's hard to line up this stuff. That's the hard part, bringing him back on three days, to try to set him up for that and get ready for the playoffs."

The Brewers won't learn their opponent until at least tomorrow, either. The Cardinals entered play Tuesday a game behind Atlanta in the National League Wild Card race.

St. Louis rallied from a 5-0 deficit and bludgeoned last-place Houston, 13-6 while the Braves lost to top-seed Philadelphia, 7-1, at Turner Field, leaving the teams tied heading into the final day of the season.

If the Cardinals and Braves are still tied after tomorrow, a one-game playoff would be held Thursday in St. Louis to determine the NL Wild Card team, adding another day of waiting to the Brewers' postseason agenda.

If you're trying to figure out the scenarios, here's how they would play out:

• If the Brewers win, they automatically clinch home-field advantage in the first round.
• If the Brewers lose and Diamondbacks win, Arizona gets home-field due to head-to-head record.
• If the Brewers clinch home field and Atlanta wins the wild card, the Brewers would face the Braves in NLDS.
• If the Brewers clinch home-field advantage and St. Louis wins the wild card, the Brewers would face the Diamondbacks in the NLDS.
• If the Diamondbacks have home-field advantage and the Braves win the wild card, Milwaukee would face the Phillies in the first round.
• If the Diamondbacks have home-field advantage and the Cardinals win the wild card, the Brewers would face Arizona in the first round.

That's a lot of "ifs," and the Brewers won't have any answers until at least Wednesday night.