The Pittsburgh Pirates currently sit in 3rd place
in the NL Central, 4 games behind the 1st place Brewers and 2.5
games behind the 2nd place Cardinals. For the 2nd wild card spot they
are tied with the Braves at 1.5 behind the Giants.
The Pirates have 29 games left and they do not control their
destiny for the division title but they do control it for a wild card
spot. They only have 3 games left with
the Brewers so if the Pirates win all 29 games and the Brewers win all but their
3 with Pirates the Pirates still finish a game behind them. Of course that is almost impossible but that is
what you do with the numbers game.
The numbers game goes beyond just numbers. The numbers have to be played against the
schedule when you are chasing teams. The
Brewers and Cardinals still have 7 games against each other and one of them
will win at least 4 of them so the Pirates can gain no more three games on one
of them from those 7 games.
Why do the Pirates control their destiny for a wild card
spot? They have 4 games left with Braves
so they can pull away from them. They
also have 3 left with Cardinals so can
make up the 2.5 deficit in those games.
The numbers above won’t matter if the Pirates do not win
most of their games against the teams who are not in contention. Nineteen of their 29 remaining games are
against teams below .500. The Brewers
have 13 games left against teams with winning records. The Cardinals and Braves have 10, same as the
Pirates. The Giants have 12 games left against teams with winning records.
The numbers can change every day depending on results. Braves and Giants play today but the results
will not change what the Pirates have to do.