NL Wild Card: Can Anyone Prove They Really Want This Thing?
For the second straight day, there is a three-way tie in the National League Wild Card standings. The Cardinals, Giants and Mets continue to defy the odds that someone would have stepped up by now and grabbed this thing, despite having played 150 games over six months on the calendar. Go figure.
While none of the three teams involved in the NL Wild Card race can be described as being in a free fall (although the Giants are close), there is a sense that the long baseball season has finally taken its toll and frustration levels are reaching a new high.
Consider that all of the following has taken place in just one week on the baseball calendar. The New York Mets began their final 10-game home stand of the season by taking, as expected, three games from the Minnesota Twins.
Inexplicably, they announce that Jacob deGrom has recovered from a elbow injury and is ready to rejoin the rotation, only to turn around and announce the following day that’s not quite true and that in fact he will have season-ending surgery. Sitting alone with a one-game lead in the standings, the Mets then proceed to lose three straight to the Atlanta Braves who are clearly playing out the string on their way to a new stadium next year.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals and Giants hook up for a head-to-head four-game matchup in San Francisco last weekend. The Giants take a 2-1 lead in the series only to lose the final game when St. Louis rises from the dead with a late inning rally. The result in Vegas terms is a push.
Following that, the Giants get tested immediately once again continuing their road trip from hell with a series in L.A. against the first place Dodgers. Tempers flare and a good old fashioned baseball brawl ensues as Madison Bumgarner and the beleaguered Yasiel Puig take center stage as both benches empty. When all is said and done, the Giants lose two of three and move on to San Diego sporting a less than illustrious 3-7 record over their last ten games.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals continue to face what seems to be a identity crisis in trying to figure out whether or not they are a good baseball team. It’s been a season-long battle for them and it’s typified by their 5-5 record over their last ten. After taking an 11-1 pounding from the Rockies last night, they now move on to contend with the Cubs.
The Cubs, who have nothing left to win except a World Series title, at some point soon will be pretty much shutting down, resting their regulars and generally just getting ready for their run through the playoffs. But with these games having meaning in the Wild Card standings, they may have to take the high road to forestall being criticized for “laying down” against the Cards.
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The Mets move on to face the Phillies to close out their home stand and once again the pressure is all on them to beat up on a team that they are clearly better than. By far, they have played better than either the Giants or Cardinals over the past month and would seem to be in the driver’s seat in the stretch run for the Wild Card as the team with the softest remaining schedule.
But they are a flawed team that is playing with a patchwork lineup put together each night by Terry Collins. And unless Steven Matz can survive his scheduled start on Friday, they would enter the playoffs with only 2/5 of their much ballyhooed starting rotation from the beginning of the year.
So, round and round we go and where she stops no one knows. Exciting, nail-biting, hair-raising – oh yes. Unless the Pirates (three games behind) can run the table or something close to it, one of these three teams will go home and they’ll have the whole winter to ponder why they couldn’t step up and just win this thing outright.
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And for the other two teams, they’ll still be in survival mode and there will be no rest for the weary. What will they have won? Nothing except the honor of playing their 163rd game of the season in a one-game shootout to decide who moves on. Unless of course, the Wild Card race ends in a tie as they are today. But then, that’s a whole other story…