For Cubs, Weak Schedule Stretch Leaves Open One Last Door Back to Wild Card Fight

As things stand in the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies are barreling toward an NL East crown; the Milwaukee Brewers are mortal locks for the NL Central title; and the Los Angeles Dodgers are probably going to run away with the NL West. Beyond them, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks are jockeying for the first and second Wild Card seeds, and barring an epic collapse, they'll grab them with room to spare.

That leaves one playoff spot for the following teams: Atlanta, the New York Mets, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cincinnati Reds, the San Francisco Giants, and the Chicago Cubs. With a record of 59-63, the Cubs are currently last among that group of fringe contenders, though they’re only 5.5 games behind the Braves, who sit atop the heap. Having to climb past five teams is hard enough in mid-August, and the fact that the Cubs only play the Reds (among the Wild Card hopefuls) from here on out makes their potential playoff push that much more difficult.

The math is hard to work out. Even if the Cubs go on a run, it just takes one of those other five squads going on a similar winning streak to keep Chicago out of the Big Dance. According to FanGraphs, the Cubs’ playoff odds sit at a mere 3.6%, and even that number is buoyed by a projected 1.7% chance to steal the division, which seems like an impossibility given the way the Brewers have played this season. Among the quintet above them in the standings, only the Reds have playoff odds in the same neighborhood as the Cubs, currently sitting at 5.3%.

However, the Cubs have the benefit of a very light schedule over the next couple of weeks, playing the Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers at Wrigley, heading out to face the Miami Marlins, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Washington Nationals, and then returning home to face the Pirates at the beginning of September. Each of those teams possesses a record worse than the Cubs' right now, and all of them are well out of the playoff picture. If the Cubs have any plans on making a valiant effort to sneak into the postseason, this is the time for them to do it.

The Blue Jays (5th in AL East) and Tigers (4th in AL Central) have had wildly disappointing seasons and sold off at the trade deadline. Over their last 10 games, Toronto is 5-5 and the Tigers are 6-4, while the Cubs are playing even .500 ball. Notably, both are sporting sub-.500 records on the road, which should help the Cubs capitalize on a pair of winnable series at Wrigley Field, where they’ve posted a 32-27 record thus far in 2024.

The road trip, thankfully, presents even less threatening teams, which should give Craig Counsell’s team a chance to improve on their dismal 27-36 road record. The Marlins and Nationals are the two worst teams in the NL East, and both are sitting well below .500 at their home parks. Both rank toward the bottom of the league in offense - the Nationals have scored 518 runs (tied for 17th in the MLB), the Marlins have scored 450 runs (29th) - and they’re both bottom-10 in team ERA. The Cubs, on the other hand, rank seventh with a 3.75 team ERA, and they’re only three spots behind the Nationals in runs scored.

The Pirates will be the most interesting series of the bunch, as the teams will play three games each at PNC Park and the Friendly Confines. The Cubs are just 3-4 against Pittsburgh this year, though they haven’t played against each other since playing seven times in a 10-day stretch in mid-May. The Pirates have some star power, in the form of NL All-Star starter Paul Skenes, All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds and toolsy shortstop Oneil Cruz, though a healthy Cubs roster is still a tier above what the Buccos trot out on the diamond.

After this stretch, the Cubs have series with the New York Yankees, Dodgers, and Phillies, though those are sandwiched by 10 games against the Colorado Rockies, Athletics, and Nationals. They don’t have to completely close the gap between themselves and the rest of the Wild Card hopefuls over the next three weeks, but time is running out. The more ground they make up now, the better off they’ll be in the final stretch run at the end of September.

The odds are slim, but given where things stood a month ago, at least the Cubs have given themselves a fighting chance. There’s more than just pride on the line in this final month and a half in the 2024 season, which is a win in and of itself. This hasn’t been the year fans were hoping for, but the year isn’t over yet.