Photo Courtesy of Milwaukee Brewers
As the MLB season approaches its final week, most of the national storylines revolve around a few teams. With most of the divisions already clinched and all but a handful of teams certain they’ll be either in or out of the postseason, it’s a week when all eyes will be on a small collection of contenders jockeying for position. Unfortunately, some of baseball’s least competitive teams will also share that spotlight.
Baseball’s massive gap in competitiveness between teams took center stage over the weekend in the NL Central race. In Chicago, the Cubs and Cardinals had their respective fates on the line and played like it, with St. Louis winning four games by one run each. Meanwhile, the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates came to Milwaukee and lost three games by a combined score of 24-5, getting blown out in the first two contests and allowing the Brewers to take a perfect game into the seventh inning of the third.
The Brewers took advantage of a limping Pirates team, who allowed runs to score on errors in each of the first two games, walked in three runs and hit a batter with the bases loaded to drive in a fourth. They’ve been outscored 87-26 during their current nine-game losing streak to fall 26 games under .500 on the season, and they’re 41-71 since May 19. They’ve been a non-contender in the NL Central for months now, but they’ll be a factor in the division’s outcome anyway.
Twelve of the Pirates’ final 22 games are against the Cardinals, Cubs or Brewers, including three against Chicago on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. To date they’ve gone 1-8 in those contests, with the lone victory coming against the Cardinals on September 6. Their struggles have become a real factor in the race: Getting to face one or more opponents that are borderline non-competitive has been a big part of recent hot streaks for each of the division’s three contenders:
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- From August 7th through September 8th the Cardinals’ schedule included just one winning team, the Brewers. They went 23-7 over that stretch to take a commanding lead in the Central.
- The Cubs’ late season slide likely would have been worse if not for some breaks in the schedule against the Pirates. Since August 15 they’re 5-1 against Pittsburgh and 13-16 against everyone else.
- The Brewers’ hot September has featured some solid performances against the other contenders but been boosted by a combined 10-1 record against the Marlins, Padres and Pirates.
Of course, the NL Central contenders aren’t MLB’s only team benefiting from games against weaker opponents down the stretch. The Wild Card contending Nationals just wrapped up a series in Miami where they took two of three from a Marlins team that’s already clinched 100 losses. This week the 109-loss Tigers and 100-loss Royals will welcome in the Twins and Braves, respectively. The fact that the AL East is already decided will, at least, prevent the 105 loss Orioles and one of the worst pitching staffs in MLB history from making a prominent appearance in the season’s final games.
Baseball’s competitive gap drew heavy attention last winter, as a slow free agent market and a recent trend towards long rebuilds created the impression that many front offices weren’t all that interested in winning in the short terms. A few of the teams criticized for not doing enough are still having pretty nice seasons, of course: Light spending franchises in Oakland, Tampa and Cleveland have all positioned themselves to be relevant this week and beyond. Nonetheless, this September won’t help MLB escape that narrative as the season’s final pennant races will be at least in part decided by the leaders’ performances against teams that either packed it in months ago or never got started at all.
