Willy Adames visited the Brewers clubhouse while the Giants were in town
Former Brewers shortstop Willy Adames was back in the clubhouse visiting his former teammates during a weekend series against the San Francisco Giants.
The Milwaukee Brewers come into their game Sept. 9 against the Texas Rangers with a magic number of three to clinch a better record than the San Francisco Giants, the first team on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.
Logically, that would tell you the earliest the team could clinch a playoff spot would be Sept. 10, needing three outcomes (Brewers wins or Giants losses) to go correctly and officially land a spot in the 2025 postseason.
Technically, though, there is a scenario that could get the Brewers a playoff berth by end of business Tuesday, Sept. 9.
How could the Brewers clinch a playoff spot Sept. 9?
The Brewers would need to win and get the following three outcomes to go correctly: the Cincinnati Reds losing to the San Diego Padres, the Giants losing to the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers losing to the Colorado Rockies.
If the Brewers’ magic number to beat the Giants is 3, how can that possibly work?If the Brewers win, they’d be guaranteed a record of no worse than 90-72. They would be guaranteed to finish better than every team on the outside looking in of the playoff picture in a head-to-head comparison, except the Giants (currently 73-71).A Reds loss Sept. 9 would put the team at 73 losses on the year. Though the Brewers have the tiebreaker over Cincinnati in a head-to-head scenario, the Reds still need that extra loss because a three-way tiebreaker scenario remains theoretically possible. A tie with Chicago and Milwaukee would give the Reds the division title (especially because they would have won all seven remaining head-to-head games with Chicago and Milwaukee to pull this off).A Giants loss would put them at 72 losses. The Giants have a head-to-head tiebreaker advantage with Milwaukee, so that would seem to keep the Giants afloat another day in this comparison. However …If the Dodgers lose tonight, they’ll be at 65 losses. We know the Dodgers and Giants have seven more games against each other. So, either the Giants will lose a 73rd game in that sequence (and get “eliminated” from catching the Brewers) or the Dodgers will suffer, at best, 72 losses. The Brewers have a head-to-head tiebreaker with the Dodgers and would get priority in that circumstance.In the LOL-worthy scenario where San Francisco wins the rest of its games, the Brewers lose the rest of theirs and the Dodgers win everything left on their docket aside from the Giants games, all three would be 90-72 for two wild-card spots. San Francisco would get the No. 2 spot by virtue of having the best head-to-head record against both other contenders, and Milwaukee would get the No. 3 spot over Los Angeles.
Obviously, all of this is about timeline and not certainty; the Brewers are going to clinch a playoff berth, it’s just a matter of when. The far likelier scenario is Milwaukee clinching Sept. 10 and almost certainly by Sept. 12, the first day on a new homestand.
Who do all these teams play Sept. 9?
If the Brewers win and you want to see a playoff clinch with your own eyes, you’ll need to stay up late to watch some west-coast baseball.
Milwaukee at Texas; Brewers TBA (presumably right-hander Chad Patrick) vs. Rangers right-hander Jack Leiter (9-8, 3.74 ERA), 7:05 p.m. CTCincinnati at San Diego; Reds right-hander Zach Littell (9-8, 3.81) vs. Padres right-hander Michael King (4-2, 2.81), 8:40 p.m. CTArizona at San Francisco; Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen (11-13, 4.77) vs. Giants left-hander Robbie Ray (10-6, 3.31), 8:45 p.m. CTColorado at Los Angeles; Rockies right-hander Germán Márquez (3-12, 6.19 ERA) vs. Dodgers right-hander Emmet Sheehan (5-3, 3.59)