NL Wild Card is still Reds' best chance at playoffs despite Brewers' devastating loss

The Cincinnati Reds have certainly made up some ground in the standings over the past week. The Redlegs are riding a four-game winning streak after salvaging a win on the road in Milwaukee last weekend and sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals earlier this week.

The Reds will welcome the upstart Kansas City Royals to Great American Ball Park for a three-game series this weekend with their eyes on continuing to climb into the National League playoff race with a little less than a month-and-a-half left in the regular season.

Some tough news came out of the Milwaukee Brewers camp this week when Christian Yelich announced that his 2024 campaign was over following a back injury. There was hope that Yelich would be able to rehab, but that's not the case. The former MVP, who's had a nice season for the Brew Crew, will miss the remainder of the year.

NL Wild Card is still Reds' best chance at playoffs despite Brewers' devastating loss

But the Reds' best chance to make it back to the MLB Postseason for the first time since 2020 is by way of the NL Wild Card. Heading into Friday's game against the Royals, the Reds are tied with the Cardinals and trail the Brewers by nine games in the NL Central. However, Cincinnati is only four games back in the wild-card chase.

In terms of playoff odds, Cincinnati's chances to make it to October aren't great. The Reds own a 4.9% chance to the make the playoffs according to FanGraphs. But their chances to win the division sit at just 1.7%. The Brewers are overwhelming favorites (95.1%) to win the NL Central once again in 2024.

Both the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres seem to have a firm grip on two of the three wild-card spots. But the Atlanta Braves have endured countless injuries this season and are barely afloat in the playoff chase at the moment.

The Reds upcoming schedule allows them a number of opportunities to unseat many of their fellow wild-card competitors. Of the Reds 41 remaining games, 14 come against teams who are tied or ahead of them in the playoff race. Cincinnati needs to pull off quite the upset if they're going to make to the MLB Postseason, but few teams are playing as good as the Reds at this moment.

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