I’ll level with you, dear reader: there isn’t a whole lot going on during this final week of the regular season, and I totally understand if you’re over it and just want the postseason to begin. Yes, we’ve got the A’s and Yankees fighting over homefield in the AL Wild Card Game, and the A’s trying to make it so it’s the Astros who have to play in that game instead, but things are pretty quiet, generally.
The Cardinals and Rockies are making this last week matter
There isn’t a whole lot to latch onto this final week of 2018, but the Rockies and Cardinals are trying to help.
Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images
Except for with the Rockies and Cardinals, anyway. Neither of those teams is guaranteed a postseason spot in the way the A’s and Astros are: they’re going to spend these last six days fighting for the second wild card in the National League.
The Rockies are currently half-a-game back of the Cardinals for the second wild card, while also sitting 1.5 games behind the NL West-leading Dodgers. While Colorado has won four games in a row, they’re also running out of season, so their odds of winning the NL West actually decreased from just over 10 percent to just under 10 percent despite their winning streak. There isn’t a whole lot to be done when the Dodgers went 3-1 in the same stretch. For that reason, the postseason odds still have the Rockies’ best chance of October baseball coming by way of the wild card (18 percent).
Given the teams the Cardinals still have to face the rest of the way, it’s pretty easy to see a path for Colorado. St. Louis has already begun a series with the Brewers, who hold the first NL wild card and are just 1.5 games behind the Cubs for the NL Central lead. The Cardinals have to face those same Cubs for three games to close out the season: the Cardinals can certainly make it to the NL Wild Card Game, but they’re going to have to earn it in this last week.
The Rockies, on the other hand, get three more against the spiraling Phillies, a team that’s lost five in a row and is in danger of finishing under .500 on the season after going 19-30 since August began, and just 6-16 in September. Then they’ve got the Nationals, who look like they can just make it over .500 in part because they’ve been able to play the Phillies recently.
Just about anything can go down over this last week, whether it’s the Rockies taking back the NL West or leapfrogging the Cardinals or tying them, or even both the Rockies and Cardinals making it to October because the Cubs have a disastrous final week of the season. A few of those aren’t necessarily likely, but they’re still on the table, and that’s what we’ve got left to watch before the 2018 postseason begins.
- The dream of the four-way tie is still alive, as Eric Stephen detailed.
- And for an even more granular look at the Rockies, Purple Row has every possible outcome explained.
- The Red Sox will officially host the winner of the AL Wild Card Game in the American League Division Series, as their win on Monday ensured them the top record in the AL and MLB as a whole.
- That win, by the way, was number 106 on the season for the Red Sox, which breaks the franchise record for wins in a season set all the way back in 1912.
- Didi Gregorius believes his season-ending wrist injury isn’t actually a season-ending wrist injury, and that he’ll be back before it’s all over. Cortisone is something else.
- Talking Chop wonders if the Braves have made themselves a destination for top free agents this winter.
- The Rays held on longer than many expected them to, but they’ve officially been eliminated from postseason contention after a loss to the Yankees on Monday.
- Bobby Evans is out as the Giants’ general manager, which has McCovey Chronicles clarifying what this means for the position and Brian Sabean.
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