With their win yesterday, paired with the Royals’ loss, the Cubs now are tied for the third best record in all of baseball. They would be in first place, then, in every single division in baseball except their own. Hooray! And boo!
The latter outburst coming, of course, because the Cubs are still 6.0 games behind the Cardinals in their own division. We’ll see where things stand after the next two games, but, right now, BP and FanGraphs give the Cubs a just-under 2% shot at winning the Central. My un-statistical, but modestly-informed guess is that winning the next two for the Cubs might push that figure into the 7 to 9% range, which would possibly be even higher if the Pirates lose, too.
Speaking of which … the Pirates lost to the Dodgers and Zack Greinke last night, meaning that they’re now just ONE GAME ahead of the Cubs for the top Wild Card spot. I could be misremembering, but that’s the closest the Cubs have been to the Pirates in a very long time. Remember: the Cubs hold the tiebreaker no matter what, so if the two teams finish tied at the end of the year and both are Wild Card teams, the Cubs will get the home game.
Tonight, the Pirates get Clayton Kershaw.
As for the Cubs’ overall playoff chances, the Giants lost last night, too, getting blanked by the Diamondbacks. That puts them 9.0 games behind the Cubs, and drops the Cubs’ magic number to just seven.