Key Series to Watch This Week

By most measures, there are four active races left in the season - NL East, NL West, and both Wild Card Races.   Seven teams fighting for four spots, with another three teams on outside, looking in, and hoping for a miracle.

Here are the most important match-ups to keep your eyes on down the stretch.

NL East Race


The Hellcats and Cobblers unfortunately don't face off any longer (and KC won the season series 13-9), but they play the same opponents here on out:

    IB   SPB  CS  P10
GH   3    3    3   4
KC   2    5    3   3   

Inglorious and Spanish Harlem are very good, Cleveland and Planet 10 are not.  In all likelihood, whichever team comes out on top in the combined 13 games vs Inglorious and Spanish Harlem will win the division.

For those counting at home, Grumman finishes with 3 against Planet 10 while KC finishes with 4 against Spanish Harlem.  KC better have a game or two lead heading into the final weekend if they plan on catching Grumman.

NL West Race


If there are deities in ATB they will allow Lakeview to make up 1 single game heading into the last day of the season.  This would allow a quirk in the schedule, a 1 game series, to provide the epic backdrop for the NL West race.  If it happens, these two contenders will square off for the NL West Crown

    DB   SI  LZ  DT
DT   7    3   4   0
LZ   3    7   0   4

You'll notice two things with the above chart though.  1) Lakeview and Dayton have a 3 game set earlier in the sim, and 2) Dayton faces with Brews 7 times.  Odds are the latter will be the difference, but we can hope!

AL Wild Card Race


With Shamokin struggling of late, this has become a two-horse race for the Wild Card.  Both Critical and Newport Beach are playing well, so it may come down to the schedule to determine the ultimate winner.

     MRE  SM  NCT  BB NAM  WPM  OVO  CF
CF    4    3   2   2   0    0    0   0
NCT   0    0   0   0   3    3    4   2

This is interesting and I think most series cancel each other out, despite having no teams in common with each other except for a head to head 2 game set.

• Critical has 4 against Manatheren while Newport Beach has 4 against Otterville - both difficult.
• Critical has 3 against Shamokin; Newport 3 against Willets Point -  both challenging, but winnable
• Critical has 2 against Back Bay' Newport 3 against the New Amsterdam - clear edge to Newport.  But is it enough to make up the 1.5 game deficit?

NL Wild Card Race

We've already seen the schedule for KC and Lakeview so the question is, does Inglorious have any potential stumbling blocks in their last 12 games.

     LEW  GH  CL  KC 
IG    4    3   2   2  

The answer is YES.   Nine games against team above .500 and two against a struggling Chatanooga team that was above .500 until very recently.

Play Ball!