One Last Road Trip, One Last Standings Check

By
Rice Cube
-
62

Once upon a time, I went to the Cubs Convention right around when Theo Epstein was named the new head of baseball operations and they’d just barely traded for Anthony Rizzo. I wanted, at the time, to get the autograph of one Brett Jackson, who I thought would be good (spoiler: he was not), but sitting at the same table was Rizzo (I’d gotten the same baseball, which was a foul during batting practice at Wrigley, signed by a passing Ryan Dempster not long before). He seemed really cool at the time, was a staple of the team for many years, and as you all know, very recently retired as a Cub. It just so happens that the Anthony Rizzo celebration weekend was another series win by the Cubs, and was one unfortunate bullpen meltdown from being a sweep.

At press time, we see the Cubs at 85-64, with 13 games remaining. The division hopes are dwindling but still alive, but we are watching the wild card standings more closely as the Cubs are now at 100.0% odds to make the postseason in any capacity per Fangraphs and probably other sites too. I think I predicted 94 wins during spring training which now feels a bit too bullish, but that will happen when the two big bats are slumpy and/or injured/sick and various other injuries throw monkey wrenches into the machine. There are some potentially tough offenses and pitching staffs to go through on the final road trip against the Pirates and Reds before finishing off the season at Wrigley against the Mets and Cardinals, but the Bull Durham cliche is to just take it one game at a time.

Starting with the American League, we see the Blue Jays and Tigers at the top and in position to earn first-round byes, and Seattle currently leading the West for the last division crown. The wild cards are the Yankees, Red Sox, and Astros in order. Texas and Cleveland are the most viable bubble teams, while the Cubs dealt a big blow to the Rays’ chances this weekend.

In the National League, the voodoo Brewers have slumped a bit from their stupid pace but still lead the Central by 5.5 games over the Cubs. The Phillies hold the second seed at the moment, and the Dodgers remain the West leaders by 2.5 games over the Padres. The Cubs have the third best record in the NL but will hold the top wild card spot by 3.5 games over the Padres, with the Mets holding on to the final spot. The Cubs are a full 10 games over the Giants, and with SF holding the tiebreaker, the magic number to secure any wild card spot is now 4 (at least that’s what people tell me, I can’t do math anymore).

As for other elimination numbers, it appears the magic number is 8 for the Brewers to clinch the division (they’ve already earned their way to the postseason), and the Cubs will have incentive to try to make up ground and hold off the Padres. Both of those tasks requires them to just rack up wins, so let’s hope they do just that while getting the key personnel back for the postseason.

62 COMMENTS

  1. Re: injuries…

    – get Tucker healthy again (feel like he cost himself like $200MM via sucking for a month and hurting himself)
    – get Seiya well from whatever weird bug he has and maybe he remembers how to hit too
    – Amaya apparently still rehabbing in Arizona
    – Soroka should be back with the Cubs for his next game action
    – Owen Caissie apparently had concussion symptoms so hope he recovers well from that

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  12. I stand behind my answer that PCA is the pivotal guy for the Cubs moving forward. I don’t know that he’s *back* back, but you can hear the rest of the National League whispering “oh shit.” (dying laughing)

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  25. To-day’s base ball squadron vs Paul Skenes

    1B Busch
    2B Hoerner
    LF Happ
    DH Ballesteros
    C Kelly
    CF PCA
    SS Swandong
    RF Castro
    3B Shaw

    SP Horton

    Should be a fun pitching matchup

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  33. Ok so if the Giants lose they can’t tie the Cubs in the standings, but the Dbacks could since that means they would win…but if the Cubs just win one game it doesn’t matter

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