Herewith another pitching mismatch -- a guy leading the league in wins, vs. a guy still trying for his first major league win.
Guzman did have seven strikeouts and no walks in his last start, but also gave up three HR. Meanwhile, Penny got pounded in his last outing and since August 7, although he is 4-3, his ERA has gone from 3.43 to 4.21.
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David Pinto of Baseball Musings has gone on record, and I'm in agreement, that he'd like to see a "Massive Tie" in the National League. Yesterday, MLB conducted 22 coin flips to determine the sites of tiebreaker games -- and that was only for all the possible TWO-WAY ties.
Three or four or five teams tie? Watch their heads explode. As of now, the wild card standings are as follows:
W L GB Left San Diego 74 69 -- 19 San Francisco 73 71 1.5 18 Philadelphia 72 71 2.0 19 Florida 73 72 2.0 17 Cincinnati 72 72 2.5 18 Houston 70 74 4.5 18
So, as Pinto says, the best scenario today would be for the following results: Astros over Cardinals; Phillies sweep Braves (doubleheader, at this writing game one has just started); Marlins over Mets; Reds over Padres, Giants over Rockies and Cubs over Dodgers.
That would put six teams within 3.5 games of the wild-card lead, and the Dodgers remaining just 1.5 games ahead of the Padres.
There's enough time left for many different tie scenarios. There has never been a three-way tie for ANY league, division or wild card; the closest were probably the 1967 AL, where four teams finished three games apart and all four went into the final weekend with a chance to win, and the 1908 AL, three teams within 1.5 games and the 1908 NL, where the Cubs had to make up the famous Merkle game against the Giants to beat out the Giants and Pirates by one game each.
See, there it is back on topic, talking about the last time the Cubs won the World Series.
Note: Wade Miller has been announced as tomorrow's starter. Oh, joy.
MLB.com Cubs Gameday
Discuss amongst yourselves.