Reds best route to the playoffs may come via the Wild Card

This is a big weekend for the Cincinnati Reds. With two games against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Redlegs have an opportunity to make up some ground on the Milwaukee Brewers. That is, of course, if the Brewers ever lose again.

Cincinnati has won eight of their last 10 games, and so has Milwaukee. If David Bell’s club has any hope of taking thee National League Central Division from the Brew Crew, the Reds are going to have to go on a tear while the Brewers take a few L’s along the way.

The Reds are in prime position to make the playoffs.

At 59-51, Cincinnati has 52 games remaining. Of those 52 games, 11 are against the Pirates. Yes, 21% of the Reds games over the next two months are against one of the worst teams in baseball.

Furthermore, the Reds play six games against the Chicago Cubs, who just recently traded away their core group of players from the team’s World Series run. Cincy also has seven games against the Miami Marlins who have just 47 wins on the season.

Combine that with four games against the now-rebuilding Washington Nationals, and the Reds have  pretty easy schedule. Only 14 (27%) of their remaining games are against team’s with a winning record.

The Brewers don’t have the easiest schedule over the final two months of the season, but Milwaukee has a nice cushion that allows them to falter a little without falling out of the division race completely.

Milwaukee plays the Cubs and Pirates a combined 10 times before the season ends, and has a three-game set with the Minnesota Twins. However, the Beer Makers have two more games against the NL West-leading San Francisco Giants this weekend and will go on the road for four games in the Bay Area and three games against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine.

The Reds best route to the playoffs may come via the Wild Card.

After the San Diego Padres dropped their series opener to the Arizona Diamondbacks last night, the Cincinnati Reds picked up a game in the chase for the final Wild Card spot. The Dodgers have a 3.5 game lead over the Friars, but the Redlegs have now closed the gap and trail the Padres by just 2.5 games.

San Diego, who’s currently without their best player, have a relatively simple stretch over the next week before running into a potential wall of playoff contenders over the final month-plus. After an off day on August 19th, the Padres will play 33 of their final 39 games against teams with a winning record.

That means that 85% of the teams that San Diego plays over the final month-plus of the 2021 season have a winning record. That list includes the San Francisco Giants, Los Angels Dodgers, Houston Astros, and the Atlanta Braves. Only the Los Angeles Angels, whom the Padres play four times, are the only winning team likely out of contention.

If the Cincinnati Reds hope to return to the postseason, they have to keep winning. That seems like an obvious statement, but it’s true. David Bell’s squad can only control what’s in front of them, and if they do, there’s a great chance we could see October baseball in the Queen City.