Cubs Stand Hilariously Close to Playoff Clinch After Securing Third Straight Series Win

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The Cubs didn't sit around in a visiting clubhouse with plastic on the walls Tuesday night. They have a day game Wednesday, and it made much more sense to go get a good night's sleep at the team hotel. In beating Paul Skenes and claiming their third straight series win by taking the first two games in Pittsburgh, they'd done their job. Besides, technically speaking, they couldn't mathematically clinch a playoff berth even when the results came in from the West Coast later in the evening.

'Technically' and 'mathematically' are the most important words in that sentence, though. For all intents and purposes, when the Diamondbacks walked off the Giants to give San Francisco their 76th loss deep in the night (by Pittsburgh's and Chicago's clocks), Chicago finished the thing. The only team left in pursuit of the final Wild Card slot with fewer than 76 losses is Arizona, over whom the Cubs hold the tiebreaker based on head-to-head record. Since the Cubs are now 87-64, they can't lose more than 75 games by season's end. 

It's a little bit funny to ponder the lone scenario by which the Cubs could still be denied a place in the playoff field, so let's indulge in a laugh. Here's what would have to happen for Chicago to be left out:

• The Cubs lose their final 11 games; AND
• The Diamondbacks win their final 10 games; AND
• The Dodgers go exactly 3-8 the rest of the way; AND
• The Padres go exactly 5-6 the rest of the way; AND
• The Mets go at least 9-2 the rest of the way.

In that case, the Diamondbacks, Dodgers and Padres would all tie for first in the NL West. Arizona currently stands 5-5 against each of the other two and has three games left with each, so by means of having swept them en route to this miraculous tie, they would claim the three-way tiebreaker and win the division. The Mets would claim the first Wild Card slot, because they'd either be just ahead of the pack or would win the four-way tiebreaker by means of having the best aggregate record in games among the four.

That would push the Cubs, Dodgers and Padres into a three-way tiebreaker. The Dodgers would win that, by means of having the best aggregate record in games among the three, mostly because they're 9-4 against San Diego this year. The Cubs and Padres would thus move into a two-team tiebreaker for the final spot, and San Diego would win it, because in this scenario, the Cubs would have lost eight straight intradivisional games to close out the season, finishing with a worse one than San Diego has already guaranteed themselves—and that's the next tiebreaking criterion after head-to-head record. (The Cubs and Padres split their season series, 3-3.)

Because there are overlapping games in this picture—the Cubs still play the Mets, the Diamondbacks have those games against the Dodgers and Padres, the Padres still have to finish their current series against the Mets—the math gets hairier than I care to handle. I can't give you the exact odds against this happening. I can, however, tell you that a very fair approximation (not an exaggeration or a joke, but my real best estimate) is 172 million-to-1. 

It's fair to say, then, that the Cubs effectively clinched their place in the playoffs Tuesday night. The suspense had long been gone on that front, anyway. By getting their act together this month and winning eight of their 10 series since the midpoint of August, they removed any stress from the equation. Six wins in their last seven games have sent them surging so far ahead of the pack that it feels silly even to worry about whether the above counts as having clinched or not. Their magic number to ensure home-field advantage in the Wild Card Series is all the way down to 7, with 22 combined games remaining for them and San Diego. They might as well save their champagne for the moment when they get there, at this point.

Playing well from mid-August to mid-September is wonderful; it certainly feels better than backing and tumbling toward a playoff spot. However, the Cubs' failure to keep pace with the Brewers in the NL Central has taken much of the juice out of September. Winning a chip and a chair for October is well and good, but it won't feel like much of an achievement if they don't capitalize on it by winning a series or two in the playoffs. A division title would have been sufficient to call the season a success; getting in as a Wild Card only gives them a second chance to do something really meaningful. Behind Matthew Boyd, the team will try to sweep the Pirates Wednesday and leave town smelling of booze and victory. Either way, though, plenty of work still lies ahead.

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