Although the NL Central race rightly gets the bulk of our attention, the NL Wild Card race is getting ridiculous, and it’s arriving right on the Cubs’ doorstep.
The AL race is pretty exciting, too, though largely by virtue of the race in the AL West. Look at the standings right now:
In the NL, you’ve basically got four-team tie for two Wild Card spots, and then the Dodgers – who might be the best of that group – there just 2.0 games behind. That’s nuts.
There will be some additional stratifying by the time we get into late September, but in the meantime, this is going to be intense. And when you consider that two of those five teams are chasing the Cubs in the Central, it’s a reminder of just how messy things could get for the Cubs if they were to fall back a bit.
Also … what if things don’t shake much more loose by the time late September rolls around? Can you imagine having a FIVE-TEAM Wild Card race in, like, the final week of the season? I would watch that.
