Yesterday's exercise concerned the Braves and the need – or lack thereof – to have the alleged home-field over the Dodgers in the NLDS. Things changed a bit last night. The Dodgers lost to Arizona and are tied for first in the West with Colorado in the loss column. (Technically L.A. holds a half-game lead, but the Rockies have six games remaining to the Dodgers' five.)
Also: The Cubs lost to Pittsburgh for the second night running. Their lead over the Braves for the league’s best record is down to two games, and the Cubs have two more with the Pirates and then three with the Cardinals, who – having themselves lost to Milwaukee the past two nights – are in desperation mode. St. Louis has fallen a half-game behind Colorado in the chase for the second wild card. Meanwhile, the Brewers have drawn within 1-1/2 games of first in the Central.
Meaning: The Braves – who have two games left with the Mets and three with the Phillies, who have lost six in succession are no longer above .500 or even in second place in the East – have been boosted in their efforts to finish second in the league, and it’s not inconceivable they could finish first. The Braves would only have to tie with Chicago to claim the No. 1 seed: The teams split their regular-season games 3-3 (first tiebreaker); the Braves are 48-23 against their division while the Cubs are 37-34 against theirs (second tiebreaker).
The No. 1 seed faces the winner of the wild-card game, which could be any combination of Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers and Rockies. The No. 1 seed would hold the home-field semi-edge until the World Series, unless the American League winner happens to be Cleveland, which has won only 88 games. (The other AL qualifiers have all won 95-plus; nobody in the NL has won more than 91.)
Should the Brewers win the Central and finish tied with the Braves, they’d take that tiebreaker. (Milwaukee won four of the seven games between them.) The Cubs and the Cardinals are the only possible NL qualifiers against which the Braves hold the tiebreaker edge, and the Cardinals aren’t winning the Central. Their elimination number is down to one, which means the Cubs – and Brewers – would have to lose the rest of their games, which won’t happen.
Schedules: The Dodgers have one left at Arizona and three in San Francisco; the Rockies have two with Philly and three with Washington; the Cubs we mentioned above; the Brewers have one at St. Louis and three at home against Detroit; the Cardinals have one with Milwaukee and three at Wrigley Field.
All five AL playoff qualifiers, and all three division champs, are known. The only NL entity that has clinched a postseason berth is the local club. (We say again: The East wound up as the place to be.) The Braves can spend these final five games knowing the worst that can happen is to open the NLDS on the road, and as previously noted that's not entirely a terrible thing. There's also a chance they could secure the No. 2 seed and maybe snatch the No. 1.
For the latter to happen, they’d probably need to beat Jacob deGrom tonight in New York. If you go by ERA, he has been baseball’s best pitcher by some distance. He has also made five starts against these Braves. They’ve won all five games. In a season that has yielded many amazements, that’s the most, er, amazin’.
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