Premature Playoff Talk

Overlooked a bit amongst the various storylines in baseball right now is the battle for 2nd-best record in the National League, which as of this morning, was a dead heat between Los Angeles and Atlanta. Now, I know that's not the kind of race that will keep anyone's pulse pounding as September grows old, but with 6 of the 8 playoff teams all but decided already, it's as good as any to look at. Particularly seeing as how it involves the Dodgers and their potential course through the playoffs.

As I understand it, the rules for playoff seeding are as follows: The wild-card plays the team with the best record in the league, unless that team comes from the same division as the wild-card. Then, the WC would play the team with the second-best record. The team with the better record gets home-field advantage in the DS and LCS, and the wild-card team can never have home-field advantage. (The AL gets HFA in the World Series this year, thank you Roger Clemens.)

Let's assume the division races finish the way they stand now. With the Cardinals on pace for well over 100 wins, they'll end up in a first-round battle with either the Giants, Padres, or Marlins, should any of those teams take the wild-card (I'm not going to say "win" the wild-card. When you're a second-place team, you haven't won anything.) The Dodgers and Braves will square off in the other Division Series, with HFA TBD.

It gets a little more complicated if a Central team wi- er, takes the wild-card. If either the Astros or the Cubs ends up as the WC, they'll get to face either the Braves or Dodgers. If the Braves win the battle for 2nd-best record, and the wild-card comes out of the Central, the Dodgers will get the Cards in the best-of-5 first-round series, and will likely not get home-field advantage in any playoff round (the only way would be if the wild-card team ends up beating Atlanta.) The best plausible scenario seems to be for the Dodgers to capture the 2nd-best record and face a Central division wild-card team in the first-round, while letting the Braves and Cards slug it out in the other Division Series. The Astros and Cubs (and Braves) pose their own specific matchup problems, but any one of them seems preferable to St. Louis at this point.

All of this begs the question: would you rather face the Cards in a short series, or in a longer best-of-7 series? Their pitching staff doesn't strike fear into anyone the way their offense does, so that might lead you to conclude that a longer series would be better. That way you don't necessarily get crippled if a starter gets roughed up by Pujols & Co. On the other hand, if you can get a couple of hot starts and steal some games from them in a short series...

I guess the reasoning becomes circular at this point. The real bottom line is that the road to the World Series will more than likely go through St. Louis. The Dodgers didn't handle their first trip to Busch so well last weekend. That makes a strong showing this weekend somewhat vital, on a number of levels. Yes, we all know they can throttle a AAA team like the Diamondbacks, but they haven't really shown yet that they can play with the big boys. With streaky bats and inconsistent starting pitching, the Dodgers are still playing like a team begging to get swept out of the playoffs. A series win against the Cards would make a major statement about the team's readiness to handle the pressure of October. Combined with the race with Atlanta for 2nd-best record and the usual task of keeping the Giants at bay, that makes this weekend matchup a true gut-check.

My MLB.tv account is ready and waiting for me to get my high-speed connection up and running. Come on Verizon, ring the damn doorbell already...