Ain’t No Fang: The Arizona Diamondbacks’ path to the final NL Wild Card spot
The Ain’t No Fang podcast from Arizona sports. Ain’t no fang. Hello everybody. Welcome in to Ain’t No Fang, Arizona Sports Diamondbacks podcast coming to you on a Tuesday morning. Thanks for hanging out as we prepare for the final stretch of the regular season for the Arizona Diamondbacks and for all of Major League Baseball. And what a fascinating week of baseball do we have in the National League. in the NL. You know, we know the top five playoff teams. There’s still a little bit of a race for the NL West, but for the most part, we know where everybody’s going to end up. We don’t know who the sixth and final seed is going to be, that final wild card spot. And the Dimebacks are right in the thick of it. So, how did we get here? The Dimebacks took care of business against the Phillies after losing the series opener. So, they take two out of three. That’s a big series win against a very good team. The Reds sweep the Cubs in four games. Cubs not particularly helpful for the Diamondbacks at this point. Um but they could be this week because they play the Mets. Uh and then the Mets who have been in a playoff spot for basically the entire season dropped a shocking series at home to the last place Washington Nationals. And if you go on any social media and you look up the name Jacob Young, you may want to send a thank you to Jacob Young if you’re a Diamondbacks fan because some of the plays he made uh to knock out the Mets in that Sunday series finale um were quite incredible, including kicking the ball to himself. So, where that leaves us right now, and this the point of this show is just to kind of go over everything we need to know going in to these final six games. And the Mets and Reds right now are tied at 80 and 60 or 80 and 76. The Diamondbacks are one game back at 79 and 77. And that’s pretty unbelievable because think of the ways in which we got here. The Mets entered this season after signing Juan Sodto and bringing back Pete Alonzo and signing a few pitchers and they had this huge league leading payroll up over $320 million on their team. And they start off the year 45 and 24. And it looked like, okay, the Mets are just one of the six teams that you’re going to write in pen. They’re going to be in the postseason. Since then, they are 35 and 52 and have completely crashed back down into a race that it looked like they had no business being in. And that has opened the door for teams like the Reds and the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks at the trade deadline were 51 and 58. And they sold off, you know, more than eight wins above replacement worth of players. Mel Kelly, Josh Naylor, Auhane Suarez, Randall Gritick, Shelby Miller. Uh, and since then 28 and 19, one of the three best records in the NL to climb back in. And the Reds have kind of been in between those two extremes. They’ve basically been around a 500 team the entire year, never getting above seven games, never getting below four games, and they’ve just hovered around that spot enough to get hot at the right moment, sweep the Cubs, and now if the playoffs were to start at the time of recording this, the Reds would actually make the playoffs. And that’s because tiebreakers, you know, it’s not I’m sure the most fun thing to hear in the world for a Diamondbacks fan to hear about all these tiebreers because last year they all went against the Diamondbacks and it ends up costing them a playoff spot. Well, right now they’re extremely relevant again and it’s a pretty big obstacle for the Diamondbacks again because the Reds hold the tiebreaker in a head-to-head season series over both the uh o over both the Mets and the Diamondbacks. They won four out of six games against the Mets. They won four out of six games against the Diamondbacks. Obviously, you know, you go back to the Diamondback series. Uh that first game in Cincinnati where it was pouring rain. Gabby Mareno gets, you know, his hand gets hit by a wild pitch. He ends up missing a lot of time on the injured list. Christian Maya, that was last time he pitched cuz he ended up going on the injured list after that game. It was a disaster because the Reds came back in the pouring rain and then they suspended the game and moved on to the next day. Dan Becks was an extras. You know, I mentioned that on on social media. It’s not the only reason why the Diamondbacks are in this predicament, but it is a factor now when you look back at it. The Reds won the season series by one game. Well, you know, technically by two game, but you know, they won four out of six games instead of three out of six games. Uh, and had this series been tied at 3-3, the Diamondbacks would actually have the tiebreaker right now because their divisional record is better. Uh, if the Diamondbacks are tied with the Mets at the end of the season, the Diamondbacks would make the playoffs because the Diamondbacks have the, you know, division record tiebreaker over the Mets. They went three and three against each other this season. So, that’s how it shapes up. And if there’s a three-way tie between those teams, the Reds would win because they have the tiebreaker over both. And I’m not going to mention much about the Giants or the Cardinals or the Marlins. These teams are mathematically alive, but like not not really. So, those are the three teams that we’re worried about this week is it’s the Mets, it’s the Reds, and it’s of course of course here at Chase Field, it is the Diamondbacks. So, here’s what we’ve got left uh as we look forward to the end of the season. The Dimebacks have the hardest schedule because they have the Dodgers first for three and then they go to San Diego to play the Padres’s for three. Now, what those teams have to play for right now for the Dodgers is pretty clear. They’re gunning for the division. They are two and a half games up on the San Diego Padres’s. They have the tiebreaker. So, that makes them their magic number is right now three. Any combination of three Dodgers wins and Padres’s losses, the Dodgers win the division. So theoretically they could win the division here in Arizona without winning a game. If the Padres’s lose a few um but you know if they win today and the Padres’s lose today then all of a sudden you just need a Dodgers win or a Padres’s loss tomorrow and the Dodgers are in the postseason or excuse me are in the uh are going to win the division. They’re already in the postseason. The Padres’s have also clinched their spot in the postseason. Um it just depends on whether or not they’re going to be a wild card team or if they are going to be a division winner. It looks pretty unlikely that they’re going to be a division winner at this point. And if the Dodgers do clinch, then the Padres’s will probably have nothing to play for in the final weekend of the season. Um, you know, make that what you will. The Padres’s had nothing to play for the last weekend of the season last year and they still won two out of three against the Diamondbacks. You never want to take any of this stuff for granted, but it does make their path a little bit easier if let’s say the Diamondbacks win two out of three against the Dodgers and the Padres’s, you know, lose two out of three against the Brewers this week, then the Dodgers would win the division and the Dodgers would have nothing to play for in that final weekend. Not saying that’s the best case scenario. Obviously, the Dyback sweeping the Dodgers is the best case scenario, but that’s something that could happen. The Reds get the Pirates this week and they get the Brewers. The Pirates are a last place team. But they do have Paul Ske who’s going to win the National League Sai Young award and he is pitching in the second of this three-game series that takes place on Wednesday. It is going to be Paul Ske against Hunter Green. He’s Cincinnati’s ace and he has been unbelievable uh when healthy this season. He just threw a complete game shut out against the Cubs. That’s a very very important game. If if the Pirates can win the SK start and steal one of the other two games from the Reds, that that looks like best case scenario in my opinion on how that series can unfold. Um the Pirates have a good pitching staff. They are one of the best pitching staffs in the major leagues by team RA. Um when we go back to just the past month, they are third at 3.31. Johan Oedo has got a sub4 RA. Braxton Ashcraft’s got a sub3 RA. These are the guys who are starting for them this week. The issue is that they can’t really score, at least consistently. They have a bottom five offense, uh, and that’s been that way pretty much the entire year. The Reds have a really good pitching staff. They have kind of a mediocre offense. So, again, it’s can the Pirates generate enough offense against the division rival on the road um to potentially steal a couple of these games. So, that’s one big one to watch. And then the Reds finish with the Brewers who have the division wrapped up. It just depends on whether or not they’re going to get the top seed. Uh, and that looks pretty likely at this point that they’re going to wrap that up, too. So, um, not a lot to play for for Milwaukee, but again, you never want to take anything for granted. As long as there’s a chance, there’s a chance. The Mets have the Cubs this week, the Reeling Cubs, who did no favors to the Diamondbacks by getting swept by the Reds. Uh, the Mets are in Chicago, and then they go to Miami. Miami, amazingly, is still alive. They’re four games out of a playoff spot. Um, and they’ve been pretty feisty. uh and and through stretches this year including right now they’ve won nine out of 10 games which is pretty incredible and so uh they’re coming off a series sweep against the Texas Rangers which basically eliminated the Rangers got a good pitching staff seems like Sandy Alcantra who’s been amazing since not getting traded kind of like in the Zack Allen camp or he’s been really really good since they couldn’t find a trade for him uh that made sense for the organization he’s going to be pitching in that final series so uh the easiest path it looks like right now are the Reds because they have that tiebreaker because their opponents are a little bit lighter considering the Brewers don’t have a whole lot to play for in the final series. Uh but you never know. The Pirates have a good pitching staff. Uh the Cubs are going to run out a rotation that’s pretty good with Kate Horton and Sha Emmanaga and Matthew Boyd this week against the Mets. So all of this to say that the Diamondbacks right now, their playoff odds, uh if you go on to baseball reference, it’s at 15.8%. It’s lower than that on fan graphs. It’s not super high, but it’s not impossible. But they’re really going to have to earn it because this Dodger series is going to be pretty difficult. You’re going up against a team that has stakes that’s trying to win the division, and they’re running out a starting rotation of Sho Otani, Blake Snell, and Yoshino Yamamoto. That might be the most difficult trio um they’re going to face in threeame series all season. and it’s going to be against kind of like a best-on best situation because you’re going Brandon Fod at home who’s been amazing at home and he’s coming off of what should have been a uh a complete game shutout. Uh you’re going to have Ryan Nelson in the second game who’s been the Diamondback’s most consistent pitcher and he won the you know Arizona chapter of the BBWA’s award for their pitcher of the year. And then you have Zack Allen who as I mentioned has been terrific uh since the trade deadline. He’s coming off a really strong start where he got through seven innings despite not feeling well uh and his stuff was ticked up pretty good and uh you know he he was able to battle through some traffic in the seventh inning and get them uh you know on the path to a victory over the Phillies. So lots there. Uh we have all of the stuff kind of mapped out on arizonaports.com where all the schedules when all these games are going to be happening. uh you know some of the national TV broadcasts that some of these games will be on. So it’s a lot of fun to kind of go into the final week of the Spaceball season and be like okay what is going on around the league because it matters to the Diamondbacks because they have managed to stay alive long enough to be in position that they could still realistically you know snatch a playoff spot away from what seemed to be uh a no-brainer that the Mets were going to get in. them and the Reds are in the same boat in that regard. Uh so we’ll see what happens. But yes, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, uh they’ve played each other tough. The season series is actually on the line there because it’s right now 5 to 5. The Diamondbacks have played the Dodgers pretty tough this season. Uh so Diamondbacks Dodgers at Chase Field Tuesday through Thursday, then Diamondbacks at Padres’s Friday through Sunday. And that will be the end of the regular season. For planning purposes, if you’re wondering when the playoffs start, it’s going to be next Tuesday. uh the Tuesday following the uh end of the regular season, that’s when the wild card series starts and the Dodgers are going to be the third division winner in all likelihood. And so whoever gets the third and final wild card spot would just go play the Dodgers. And so if it is a Diamondbacks, then they would get, you know, Dodgers go to Southern California, play the Padres’s, and then stay in Southern California and play the Dodgers theoretically. So that could be a lot of fun, too. Um keep it locked in on Arizona Sports. Check out arizonapasports.com for all of our, you know, final week Major League Baseball uh guides and previews. Uh so keep it locked in and thank you so much for tuning in.
Alex Weiner previews the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers series and updates the NL Wild Card standings.
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