Tie-breaker scenarios for the Atlanta Braves with Cubs
This week still has some meaningful work left for the Atlanta Braves.
The NL East division title is still a likely prize for the Atlanta Braves, but they cannot afford to let their collective foot off the gas just yet — there are still seeding issues to resolve.
By virtue of their weekend series in New York, the Braves have moved into a statistical tie with the Chicago Cubs for the 2nd National League playoff seed… except in baseball, there’s never actually a “tie”.
This year, tie-breakers may go a bit deeper than the usual head-to-head records, especially since there are no head-to-head games between teams in different divisions. Here’s the rules for 2020:
- 1st: Head-to-Head records IF the teams involved are in the same division
- 2nd: Intra-divisional record
- 3rd: Intra-divisional record for the most recent 20 games (half the divisional schedule)
- 4th: Intra-divisional record for the most recent 21 games, then 22, 23, etc. until the tie is broken.
With the Braves and Cubs… this is really coming down to the wire. Here’s the results so far:
CHICAGO CUBS
- vs. PIRATES: 5-1 with 4 games pending
- vs. CARDS: 5-5
- vs. BREWERS: 5-5
- vs. REDS: 6-4
- TOTAL: 21-15 with 4 division games remaining
ATLANTA BRAVES
- vs. MARLINS: 3-3 with 4 games pending
- vs. METS: 7-3
- vs. PHILLIES: 5-5
- vs. NATS: 6-4
- TOTAL: 21-15 with 4 division games remaining
Oh… that’s a dead-on tie.
Well, let’s look at the next tie-breaker — we’ll check the most recent sixteen division games for each team since each club has 4 this week that will make up a full set of 20 for fulfilling the requirements of the rule:
- CUBS: WWLWLWWLLLWLWWWL (9-7, most recent games are listed first)
- BRAVES: WLWWWLWWLLWLLWWL (9-7)
Ugh… Another tie! So now we might have to look at that 21st game.
Remember back on Friday night, August 28 when the Phillies and Braves went into the 11th inning, only to see Atlanta fall by a score of 7-4? That could be the deciding game.
On August 29th, the Cubs won the first game of a 7 inning double-header 3-0 against the Reds behind Yu Darvish. Craig Kimbrel blew their second game, but for our purposes, it’s the matinee game that matters, and it was a “W”.
So here’s the bottom line:
- This week, the Cubs play the Pirates and the Braves play the Marlins. Right away, you’d have to think “advantage Cubs” since the Pirates have nothing to play for other than pride and Chicago has already handled them well this year.
- If both clubs (Cubs/Braves) end up with the same results in these 4 games (a split, 3 wins, 4 wins, whatever), then the Cubs will win the 2nd seed position on the basis of that early win from August 29.
That combination of circumstances gives the edge to the Cubs.
Thus the only way the Braves can take that from them is if they beat the Marlins by a bigger game margin than the Cubs beat the Pirates… or maybe if a game or two is canceled.
We’ll know by Thursday night.