Brewers have favorable path to wild card
If it truly is wild card or bust for the Milwaukee Brewers, and it is looking more and more like their best bet, they have the most favorable path of teams in contention to secure one of those playoff berths.
After their home series against San Francisco this weekend, the Brewers have six three-game series remaining, and only two are against contending clubs. They play three games in Chicago from Monday through Wednesday – the last chance to stop the Cubs from claiming the NL Central. The Brewers also play three games in St. Louis during the final week of the season, which looms as a pivotal series.
The rest of the Brewers’ schedule consists of six games against Pittsburgh, three at home and three at PNC Park, three at home against Cincinnati and three at home against Detroit, an interleague series to finish the season.
The first thing skeptics are going to point out is that the Brewers have struggled this season against the Pirates, going 4-9, including a 1-6 mark on the road. Five of those losses came at PNC Park just before the all-star break as the exhausted Brewers were finishing a string of 22 games in 21 days and got swept.
So, yes, the Brewers do have to show they can beat Pittsburgh, the fourthplace team in the division. And should they continue to lose to the Pirates, in all honesty, they don’t deserve a postseason berth.
Tougher finishes elsewhere
But there is no question that the other teams in wild-card contention have more difficult paths to October baseball. The Cardinals, who blazed through August with a 22-6 record, resulting in manager Mike Shildt shedding the “interim” tag, have a much more difficult schedule over the final three weeks of the season.
Beyond that home series against the Brewers, St. Louis has a four-game home series against Los Angles, a threegame series in Atlanta and three on the road to end the season in Chicago against the rival Cubs, who would love nothing more than to knock them from playoff contention.
Over in the NL West, where Colorado, Los Angeles and Arizona have been jockeying back and forth, it could be division or bust because of finishing schedules during which those clubs could knock each other off. Beyond the four games in St. Louis, the defending league champion Dodgers play a threegame series against Colorado and three in Arizona before finishing in San Francisco against their biggest rival.
Colorado, which has climbed into first place in the NL West, has seven games remaining against Arizona, including four at home, as well as three in Los Angeles and a finishing home stand against NL East clubs Philadelphia and Washington. Not exactly a daunting remaining schedule but tougher than the Brewers, by any objective measure.
The Diamondbacks have a brutal finishing schedule that would test any club. Beginning Monday, here are their next five series: four at Colorado, four at Houston, three against the Cubs, three against Colorado and three against the Dodgers. Arizona finishes with three games at San Diego, and if the Diamondbacks make it to that series still in contention, they will have earned it.
Philadelphia, which has been sliding for some time, plays Atlanta seven times in its last 11 games, so a run at the NL East crown is not out of the question. The Phillies also play four in Colorado during that stretch, so the Rockies are going to have something to say about their contending status.
So, there you have it. The NL wildcard race has been infinitely more interesting than the AL version, with many more moving parts. But the Brewers will have no one to blame but themselves if they don’t see this thing through, especially after putting themselves in good position to do so.
That one-game wild-card playoff
Which brings us to the wild-card game itself. One of my pet peeves about the format is that the team in the second spot has to play on the road, with no guarantee of even one playoff game at home. For the fans who stuck with their team all season, I think that is patently unfair.
But, playing on the road in the NL wild-card game has not been a death knell since a second team was added to the mix in 2012. In fact, the home team has gone 2-4 to this point, though onesided pitching matchups were a driving force in how that record was forged.
Ask the Pittsburgh Pirates how important the starting pitchers are in wildcard games. For three consecutive years, from 2013-’15, they played host to that one-game showdown and won just once, getting dominated by aces in the other two.
In 2013, the Pirates topped Cincinnati, 6-2, with Francisco Liriano outpitching Johnny Cueto and catcher Russell Martin socking two home runs. It was Pittsburgh’s first postseason appearance since 1992 and first advancement since the ’79 World Series. On the flip side, Reds manager Dusty Baker was fired after his teams went 0-3 in postseason play.
The next two years, Pittsburgh had no chance to win the wild-card game. When you don’t score, you can’t win. In 2014, they lost, 8-0, to San Francisco and ace Madison Bumgarner, who went on to lead the Giants to a World Series crown by almost single-handedly beating the Kansas City Royals.
The next year, the Pirates were blanked, 4-0, by Chicago Cubs ace Jake Arrieta, who pitched a complete-game five-hitter with 11 strikeouts. Pittsburgh had to settle for the No. 1 wild card spot that year despite winning 98 games, one more than the Cubs, because NL Central champ St. Louis went 100-62.
Bumgarner struck again in 2016, blanking the New York Mets, 3-0, on a complete-game four-hitter, a repeat of his performance two years earlier against Pittsburgh. Noah Syndegaard responded with seven shutout innings for the Mets but closer Jeurys Familia surrendered a three-run homer in the ninth to little known Conor Gillaspie.
The Brewers do not have a dominant ace a la Arrieta or Bumgarner – not many teams do – but there would be no guarantee of a pitcher’s duel if they did. Last year, Arizona sent Zack Greinke to the mound against Colorado’s Jon Gray but the game became a shootout, with the Diamondbacks prevailing, 11-8.
Of course, you have to get to that wild-card game before worrying about any of that. And, if that’s the Brewers’ best shot at postseason play as it appears, they won’t be able to blame the schedule if they fail.