The NL Central: Baseball’s version of No Man’s Land

The rules require that the champion of the NL Central get a playoff berth even if none of them deserve it … which right now they very much don’t.

All five NL Central teams have gone into an extended spring funk with no indication when any of them may emerge.

The collective tailspin is so deep that the Pittsburgh Pirates cling to first place despite having lost nine of their last 10 games.

Remarkably, despite that losing skid, the Pirates have surrendered only one game off their division lead since April 29. None of the division’s other four teams have done much better.

The Milwaukee Brewers, who finished play on April 29 just 1.5 games behind the Pirates, have made up just one game because, while Pittsburgh has been losing nine of 10, the Brewers have been losing eight of 10.

The third-place Cubs were two games above .500 and five off Pittsburgh’s lead on April 29. They’re now one game below .500 and have just closed to within 2.5 games of the slumping leaders because the Cubs have only won four of their last 11.

If you went strictly by performance since April 30, by the way, Chicago’s 4-7 record would lead the NL Central. The Reds have won only three of nine, the Cardinals just three of 10.

That gives the division a collective 13-37 record over the most recent 11-day stretch.

Some of the NL Central’s problem is that, due in part to the new more “balanced” schedule, they haven’t been playing each other. Of the 47 games played by an NL Central team since April 30, only three pitted them against one another (those three were the just-concluded Cardinals-Cubs series at Wrigley Field).

But if the argument is that NL Central teams have simply hit a stretch where everybody’s playing the game’s best, better reboot that one. The 44 non-division games involved 17 against teams with records above .500, but 23 against sub.500 teams … and four against the exactly .500 Miami Marlins.

Even the little guys of MLB’s other five divisions are taking advantage of the NL Central. The Colorado Rockies, last in the NL West at 16-22, just beat Pittsburgh two of three after sweeping the Brewers three straight at month’s start.

The Brewers followed their series loss to Colorado with a series loss to the Giants (16-20). The Cubs lost three of four to the Washington Nationals (16-21), the Reds lost a series to the White Sox (13-25) and the Cardinals lost two of three at home to the Tigers (17-19).

With the exception of the Cubs, the common problem afflicting the entire division has been run prevention, as in lack of same. The Reds and Cardinals are both allowing six runs per game on average since April 30, the Pirates 5.8 and the Brewers 5.2.

The Cubs are the odd duck here in that, despite winning just four of 11, Chicago has actually outscored its opponents 40-36 over that span. Since April 30, Cubs pitchers have allowed an average of less than 3.3 runs per game, making their 4-7 team record even more unlikely.

The Cubs’ problem has been a striking inability to perform in the clutch. Over that 11-game stretch, they have played four games decided by one run plus three others decided by two runs, and they are 1-6 in those seven games with an average of eight runners left on base.

And things may not get any better for NL Central teams any time soon. Over the next two weeks, they are scheduled to play a collective 54 games. Six of those are internicene: Reds-Cards and Brewers-Cards.

But of the remaining 48 games, 31 will pit an NL Central team against a club presently on the sunny side of .500; only 14 will be against current sub-.500 teams (three others will be against the .500 Marlins).

And six of those 14 will send the Cubs against the Phillies and Mets, two postseason favorites seeking to recover from slow starts.

By month’s end, we may be looking at a division with no teams above .500 at all.