Too much is up in the air for the Cubs (80-60) to start lining up their postseason rotation just yet.
“It’s just not a thing that you think about right now,” manager Craig Counsell said last weekend in Colorado. “I think it’s a mistake to go there for us, for the team right now, for me to think about that right now because there’s enough baseball games left.”
Entering Thursday, with 3½ weeks to go in the regular season, no team had clinched a playoff spot.
And while the Cubs’ most likely path to the postseason is through the wild card, they aren’t completely eliminated from the -National League Central race.
The pitching plan looks a lot different depending on whether the Cubs storm back for a first-round bye or are in a best-of-three wild-card series.
Here’s a look at potential playoff scenarios:
Winning the division
The Brewers are the clear favorites to claim the NL Central title. They have a 5½-game lead over the Cubs.
The Cubs at least own the tiebreaker after winning the season series 7-6.
Realistically, the Cubs would need the Brewers, who have the best record in the majors at 86-55, to cool off considerably to overtake them.
The top two division winners in each league get first-round byes and advance directly to the Division Series. The way the other NL divisions are playing out, the Central winner is practically guaranteed to skip the wild-card round.
Top wild-card spot
If the season ended after Thursday, the Cubs would be hosting a series at Wrigley Field as the top-seeded wild-card team.
The Cubs have a five-game cushion over the threshold, with the Mets (75-65) occupying the last spot and the Padres (76-64) sitting in the middle.
Those three are the likeliest teams to claim wild-card spots. The next-closest team in the race is the Giants (71-69), who are four games back.
The top wild-card team gets a No. 4 seed and hosts the wild-card team with the second-best record.
The winner then advances to the NLDS against the top seed in the league, setting up a potential matchup between the Cubs and Brewers.
No. 2 or 3 wild-card spot
Six of the seven opponents left on the Cubs’ schedule had records at or below .500 entering Thursday. So for the Cubs to lose the top wild-card spot, they would have to hit a skid against non-playoff opponents and/or the Padres or Mets would have to finish on a hot streak.
The Cubs and Mets play each other before the season wraps. That three-game series could have seeding implications. The second and third wild-card teams are on the road for the best-of-three wild-card series.
The last team to get in the postseason plays the lowest-seeded division winner.
Out of the postseason
A lot would have to go wrong for the Cubs, who are on pace for 92.5 wins, to miss the postseason and extend their drought to five years. But it’s still mathematically possible.
The Cubs entered Thursday with a 99.8% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs.
Before the slate of games played out Thursday, as the Cubs soaked up a day off, their magic number was 14.
