The Pirates/Brewers series this weekend was exhausting and exciting and it was pretty gratifying to see the Pirates get two wins and run their wild card lead up to 4 1/2 games, but it’s not quite true that they don’t have anything left to play for. Their magic number to clinch a wild card bid is three. That’s probably trivial in theory given their remaining schedule, but, well, it’s not over yet. They’re also now tied with the Giants for the first wild card, which is a de facto one-game lead for them since they have the tiebreaker over the Giants by beating them four times in six games this year. Home field in the Wild Card Game may not matter much, but it might not be trivial. The Pirates have won 101 games at PNC Park over the last two seasons, which is the NL’s second best number. Francisco Liriano also seems like he was born to pitch at PNC, and he’s presumably going to be the Pirates’ choice to start a Wild Card Game, should they find themselves in one. So, no, home field in the WCG isn’t of paramount importance the way simply getting into the game or winning the division would be, but it’s not unimportant, either.
There’s also the matter of the NL Central. The Pirates are 2 1/2 games behind the Cardinals with an extra game over their rivals (the Cardinals’ last off-day is Thursday, so the last game of this Braves’ series is the extra game). My guess last week that it would take 90 wins for the Pirates to tie the Cardinals in the Central was probably conservative. I now think it’ll take 91. You’ll note that the Pirates have 71 losses at the moment and that 161 minus 71 is 91, so what I’m saying is that at this point, I think even one more loss will remove the Pirates from NL Central contention.
The solution to that problem, of course, is to just keep on winning. Liriano faces Aaron Harang. Each win is one more step in the right direction.
