Your Daily Playoff Odds Update

RallyMullet (www.nationalsarchive.com)

Well, the Nationals won again yesterday, but so did the Pirates and Reds who were no help. However, an interesting development has popped up in that the Pirates are now tied with the St. Louis Cardinals for 1st place in the Central. The Nationals are 8 games back of both, but unlike the Reds and Pirates, the Nationals will play the Cardinals between now and the end of the season. The Nats would need a sweep, but they can’t lose more than a few games from here on out anyway. A 3 game sweep of St. Louis would mean they’d only need to play 5 games better than the Cardinals in their other 13 games.

I know, I know it’s based on just about as much reality as the premise for “Under the Dome”, but, like most things from Stephen King, I love that show, so why not. The Nats are going to need help. If the Reds, Pirates and, now, Cardinals all play relatively well from here on out the Nats don’t have much of a chance, but neither did the 1951 Giants who were 6 back on September 13th and caught the Dodgers to force a playoff. They would eventually reach the World Series on Bobby Thomson’s dinger. That Giants team had a 20 year old kid on their team too, some guy named Mays.

According to coolstandings.com the Nats chances of winning a Wild Card actually improved over the last two days from 2.2% to 2.7%. Baby-stepping it for sure, but still moving in the right direction.

The Nationals are now 5.5 games back of the Reds with 16 games to play with 9 of those games coming against teams with winning records. The Reds will play 6 of their final 15 against a team with a winning record, the Pirates 6 of 16 and the Cardinals just 3 of their last 16.

The Nats are gonna need some help for sure, but at least they’re making it interesting. Just need more RallyMullet, Anthony Rendon really needs to step up this area.

(Image courtesy of the great folks at www.NationalsArchive.com, visit their site and buy some shirts it’s for charity!)