The Chicago Cubs know almost everything about their playoff fate, but there’s still one major objective to accomplish this weekend.
Because the Milwaukee Brewers clinched the National League Central last weekend, the Cubs have known for a while that they’ll be playing a best-of-three wild-card series beginning on Tuesday. Entering a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals this weekend, there’s still work to do to make sure that series comes at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs (89-70) are guaranteed to face the San Diego Padres (87-72) in their wild-card matchup. So it’s all about ensuring that the Padres do not leapfrog them based on the results of the Cubs-Cardinals series and the Padres’ matchup against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Because the Padres will likely own the tiebreaker based on intradivision records, the Cubs will have to make sure they finish a full game ahead of San Diego in the standings. That means their magic number to make sure the Padres travel to Wrigley next week is two.
In other words, either two Cubs wins, a Cubs win and a Padres loss, or two Padres losses would ensure that the Cubs don’t have to hop on a flight to Southern California on Sunday night.
The Cubs were 47-31 at home entering Friday, compared to 42-39 on the road this season. The Padres, meanwhile, entered at 49-29 at home and 38-43 on the road. Nothing is ever guaranteed in sport, but the Cubs sure would like to maximize their chances of taking down the Padres by playing those games in front of raucous Chicago crowds.
Appropriately enough, the Cubs and Padres also each took two out of three games in the series they hosted against each other earlier this season.
Chicago intends to send right-handers Colin Rea and Jameson Taillon to the mound on Friday and Saturday afternoon to take on the Cardinals, who were officially eliminated from playoff contention earlier this week. There is no announced starter for Sunday’s game, which could change depending on whether the Cubs need the win to ensure home-field advantage.