Survivor Of The NL Central Has A Huge AdvantageI woke up this morning at 4:25, like most days, and dragged myself through my morning routine — which I won’t bore you with.
My routine at the radio station this time of year includes looking through the baseball standings and calculating the possibilities.
For example: the Chicago Cubs are in the middle of a 10-game homestand. Stretches like that at home in September don’t happen very often, and they shouldn’t because that is a huge advantage to play so many critical games at home in the final two weeks of the regular season.
Our director at News Now Warsaw, Nick Deranek, and I were contemplating how many of these games the Cubs would realistically have to win to solidify their chances of making the playoffs as a division champ or a wild-card entry. We decided they needed to win eight of the 10, which includes four games against the Cardinals to end the home portion of the schedule.
Warning: this is the “I told you so” portion of the column.
You hear me talk all of the time about winning games early in the baseball season. My refrain is this: “the more you win in April and May the fewer games you have to win in September.” The point is that when you take care of business early in the season, then you will be in pretty good shape later in the season.
Over 162 games in a season, you are going to blow some games, let some big leads slip away and lose some games 12-11 or 1-0 which you wish you had back.
For the Cubs of 2019, just take any combination of three of those games that were losses and turn them into wins, and you’d be looking at an entirely different picture in the National League Central and Wild Card races.
And to get into the playoffs, they will have to do it without both Javy Baez and Anthony Rizzo, both of whom are dealing with injuries.
So all of the news is bad, right?
Not necessarily.
There is one big advantage the Cubs would have if things work out over the Dodgers and Braves: stretch drive stress.
Essentially, the playoffs are already underway for several teams — including the Cubs. That means Joe Maddon will manage games like playoff games. He won’t stay with starting pitchers just to eat up innings and save the bullpen. There is no longer anything to for which to wait.
Maddon will be more likely to open the giant book of matchups and use one pitcher to face one hitter and bring in a new guy to face the next man if he likes that matchup better.
The Atlanta Braves have been in control of their division for a month, and the Los Angeles Dodgers haven’t played a stressful game all season long. That is why Wild Card teams in the National League have done very well in the playoffs recently; they are sharp and well-seasoned and the difference between these games and the playoffs is the presence of the red-white and blue bunting on the walls.
Even if the Cubs win eight of these 10 games at home, it won’t guarantee them anything. But it should set them up well for that final weekend of the season in St. Louis and just might mean that those three games sort out the team in the one-game Wild Card and the one facing the Braves in the division series.
Know this for sure: as frustrating as the last two seasons have been, this still a whole heck of a lot more fun than losing 100 games and being out of it by Memorial Day.
