The Atlanta Braves are currently on a five-game winning streak, which is tied for their longest winning streak of the season. Depending how much you’re into this race, you’re either going to think that this streak is really fun or potentially detrimental to building up their farm system with next season’s draft. If you’re in that latter group then you might want to be rooting for some of Atlanta’s competitors in this “race” to start getting hot.
Results were certainly mixed in that regard! Let’s get into it.
Happy days are here again for the Cubs as this win clinched a spot in the Postseason for the Northsiders. The Pirates did put up a fight in this one, as it was 4-4 after two innings that saw Pittsburgh counter a four-run top of the first from Chicago with three in the bottom of the first and then a game-tying, bases-loaded walk from Andrew McCutchen in the second inning. That was as good as it got for Pittsburgh, though. Eventually, the Pirates committed two costly errors in the sixth inning that resulted in Chicago being able to go ahead by putting up three runs on the board in response. That ended up being the knockout shot — the Cubs are going to the playoffs and the Pirates have picked a great time (for their Lottery Odds) to win one out of their last 10.
As usual with a lot of games involving teams in this “race,” things started out encouraging enough. The Twins actually held a 2-1 lead after two innings in this one after a Royce Lewis RBI and Brooks Lee scoring on a passed ball. Trent Grisham crushed a solo shot to tie it up a two and then the wheels came off for Taj Bradley in the fourth inning. New York took the lead thanks to back-to-back doubles from Paul Goldschmidt and Jason Domínguez and then the Yankees went on a two-out rally that saw them go walk-home run (Grisham’s second of the night)-double-single-balked in run before the third out was finally recorded. The Twins did respond with three in the fifth inning in order to make it 7-5 but then a Ryan McMahon single in the eighth inning and a Cody Bellinger two-run shot in the ninth inning brought us to the 10-5 result. That’s 20 runs in two days for the Yankees against the Twins — yikes!
Let’s fast forward to the tenth inning with this one. The A’s actually got their Manfred Man to third base and had runners on the corners with nobody out. SacramentoThe green-and-gold team then proceeded to go strikeout-pop out-strikeout to end the inning, with Zack Kelly striking out Nick Kurtz to end the scoring threat. Going scoreless in extra innings is killer nowadays, which meant that one false move from the A’s would result in a win for the Red Sox. Carlos Narváez moved the Manfred Man over to third base with a sacrifice bunt and then Nate Eaton slid into home plate like a speed demon in order to beat Zack Gelof’s throw home. The winning streak is over for the A’s but as usual, a loss at this time of year always contains the silver lining of a tiny Draft Lottery boost.
Don’t look now but the Marlins are getting kind of hot. They split a series with the Nationals, they actually beat the Tigers over a three game series and now they’ve taken the series against the moribund Rockies. Both starters went only four innings and as such, it was tied at three once they were both gone. This came down to the bullpen for both teams and buddy, Colorado’s bullpen is a sight to behold. The Rockies had five relievers come in once McCade Brown was done and four of them surrendered at least one run to the Marlins. A sacrifice fly from Augustín Ramírez put the Marlins ahead for good and then Ramírez also eventually delivered the winning run(s) with a massive two-run bomb in the eighth. Miami has now won seven out of 10 and the Rockies are patiently waiting for the nightmare to end.
Sometimes the box score can lie to you and make it seem like a bunch of scoreless innings had nothing going on while there was a bunch of underlying tension. However, with both of these teams going absolutely nowhere here in 2025, the five scoreless innings that these two teams traded to close this one out really and truly had a bunch of nothing going on. Baltimore stole three bases in the fifth inning (with Gunnar Henderson stealing two, himself) and somehow failed to score. That was as interesting as things got after the fourth inning, which is when Dylan Beavers’ two-run homer gave the O’s enough offense to hold on to the win. Tyler Wells has been on a bit of a role, as he’s starting to look like a promising starter once again. The White Sox are well-deserving of their top spot in the lottery standings.
The Braves are the hottest team in the National League right now with their five-game winning streak and somehow that still hasn’t really “hurt” them in the Lottery since everybody else around them (aside from the Twins and Pirates, who are really starting to separate themselves) has started to heat up a bit as well. While we’ll only have three games to cover in tomorrow’s Lottery Look-In, one of these games will actually be nationally televised. I can’t imagine that FOX figured that the O’s would be completely adrift at this point in the season since they’ll be taking on the Yankees on national television tonight but hey, those are the breaks. That game will take place after both the A’s and Marlins get done so if you want to watch some bad teams play bad baseball while the Braves are off tomorrow, then there’s your invitation. Go crazy, folks.
2. Pirates | 65-88 | .425 Win% | 22.27% Lottery Odds
3. Twins | 66-86 | .434 Win% | 16.81% Lottery Odds
4. Braves | 70-83 | .458 Win% | 9.24% Lottery Odds
5. Athletics | 71-81 | .467 Win% | 6.55% Lottery Odds
6. Marlins | 72-80 | .474 Win% | 4.54% Lottery Odds
7. Orioles | 72-80 | .474 Win% | 3.03% Lottery Odds