Reds September Games Thread

[CJD]

(09-18-2023, 12:58 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Well, here we are hanging on to playoff life with 11 games to go. On homestand now with 3 vs. decent Twins team, day off then 3 vs. Pirates.

It's now or never

The Dbacks sweeping the Cubs has brought the 2nd WC spot back into contention. A week ago, it felt like the Giants, Dbacks, Marlins and Reds were fighting for that final playoff spot.

Now, it looks like the the Giants, Dbacks, Marlins, Reds and Cubs will be fighting over the final 2 playoff spots.

5 teams after 2 spots gives the Reds a 40% chance (all things even) whereas 4 team fighting over 1 playoff spot gave the Reds a 25% change (all things even).

So I would say we're in a better position to make the playoffs now than we were a week ago.

The Giants nearly got swept by the Rockies, dropping them to 1.5 games back from us with just 12 games left. This is good because they are one of the two teams that hold a tiebreaker over us. The other team is the Marlins who, unfortunately for everyone, swept the Braves this weekend (who would have thought that possible!), and they now have an incredibly easy schedule to finish the season, with their hardest opponent being 3 games against the Brewers. I'm going to be rooting for the Brewers hard there, as icky as that will feel.

The Cubs and Dbacks, we hold tiebreakers over, so we are in a decent position to beat them for that final playoff spot. Luckily for us, they both have fairly tough schedules to finish the season. 

The Dbacks have 2 games against the Giants (so one of those two teams is guaranteed to lose for the next 2 games), and then 3 against the Astros to finish the season. They have the Yankees and White Sox in between, which are technically easy games, but the Yankees are still over .500 and have won 6 of their last 8, so maybe they can handle the Dbacks for a few games.

The Cubs have  6 typically considered "easy games" against the Pirates and the white hot Rockies (who took 2 of 3 from the Cubs last week and 3 of 4 from the Giants this past weekend) and then 6 brutally hard games against the Braves and Brewers.

We, on the other hand, have 3 against Minnesota which may be somewhat difficult, and then 8 against theoretically "easy" teams, but 3 are against the Cardinals and we all know how the Reds shit the bed against the Cardinals more often than not.

When the dust settles, my guess is that it'll be the Dbacks and Marlins in those final 2 wildcard spots, but if we can get hot and take 2 from the Twins and 2 fom the Cardinals, we may be able to edge the Dbacks and Cubs.

I think the Marlins are in pretty secure shape at this point though.