Well, you could look at yesterday’s results a couple ways. On the one hand, the Cubs did not win, the Brewers did not lose, and the Cubs thus did not clinch the NL Central. In an incremental sense, that’s a bad thing.
On the other hand, like we talked about here yesterday, had the Brewers lost, they would have done it while the Cubs were getting beaten by the Cardinals, and the joy of clinching would have been a little muted. Clinching is good, but the Cubs need only one win or one Brewers loss to clinch, so I’m still comfortable being greedy about how it happens.
So that takes us to today, where the Cubs and Cardinals will kick off tonight at 6pm CT, an hour before the Brewers and Reds play. Hopefully the Cubs will stomp the Cardinals, and clinch tonight that way. Joy and champagne flow. But even if they don’t, the Brewers game will finish very shortly thereafter, and if the Brewers lose, then at least it won’t be *during* a Cubs loss.
In the Wild Card race, the Rockies beat the Marlins, so they stay 1.5 games ahead of the Brewers (one in the loss column). The Cardinals beat the Cubs, so they, too, stay where they were, 2.5 games back. The Rockies’ magic number with respect to the Brewers is 4, and the Cardinals is 3.
The only other race left in baseball is the AL Wild Card race, where the Twins – the Twins! – are one magic number away from clinching, with the Angels 5.0 games back.