Too much is up in the air for the Cubs (80-60) to start lining up their postseason rotation just yet.
“It’s just not a thing that you think about right now,” manager Craig Counsell said last weekend in Colorado. “I think it’s a mistake to go there for us, for the team right now, for me to think about that right now, because there’s enough baseball games left.”
Entering Thursday, with three and a half weeks to go in the regular season, no team had yet clinched a playoff spot. And while the Cubs’ most likely path to the postseason is through the wild card, they aren’t completely eliminated from the division race.
The pitching plan looks a lot different depending on whether the Cubs manage to storm back for a first-round bye, or are in a best-of-three wild card series.
Here’s a look into potential playoff scenarios:
Winning the division
The Brewers are the clear favorite to claim the NL Central title. They entered Thursday on a 99.5-win pace and a six-game lead over the Cubs.
The Cubs at least own the tiebreaker, after winning the season series 7-6. But to reach 99 wins, the Cubs would have to go 19-3 the rest of the way.
Realistically, the Cubs would need the Brewers, who own the best record in the majors, to cool off considerably in order to overtake them.
The top two division winners in each league get first-round byes and advance directly to the division series. The way the other National League divisions are playing out, the NL Central winner is practically guaranteed to skip the wild card round.
Top Wild Card spot
If the season ended after Wednesday’s games, the Cubs would be hosting a series at Wrigley Field as the top-seeded wild card team.
Entering Thursday, the Cubs had a five-game cushion over the threshold, with the Mets (75-65) occupying the last spot, and the Padres (76-64) sitting in the middle.
Those three are the likeliest teams to claim wild card spots. The next-closest team in the race is the Giants (71-69), who entered Thursday four games back.
The top wild card team gets a No. 4 seed and hosts the wild card team with the second-best record. The winner then advances to to the NLDS against the top seed in the National League, setting up a potential matchup between the Cubs and Brewers.
No. 2 or 3 Wild Card spot
Six of the Cubs’ seven opponents on the remaining schedule had records at or below .500 entering Thursday. So, for the Cubs to lose the top wild card spot, they would have to hit a skid against non-playoff opponents, and/or the Padres or Mets would have to finish on a hot streak.
The Cubs and Mets do play each other once more before the season wraps. That three-game set could have seeding implications.
The second and third wild-card teams are on the road for the entirety of the best-of-three wild card series. As previously mentioned, the second wild-card team plays the wild card team with the best record. The last team to get in the postseason plays the lowest-seeded division winner.
Out of the postseason
A lot would have to go wrong for the Cubs, who are on pace to win 92.5 games, to miss the postseason this year and extend their drought to five years. But it’s still mathematically possible.
The Cubs entered Thursday with a 99.8% chance of making the playoffs, according to Fangraphs.
Before the slate of games played out Thursday, as the Cubs soaked up an off day, their magic number was 14.