Epic, I tell ya. Epic!
The Milwaukee Brewers are currently doing their best to delay their next postseason game by as long as possible. The Cincinnati Reds, meanwhile, are doing the same thing whether they want to, or not.
With the Brewers flying high atop the National League Central yet again, they’ve got their sights set on claiming one of the best records in all of the NL and getting a coveted bye in this year’s San Diego County Credit Union Superexpanded Megaplayoffs brought to you by Rob Manfred™. They currently reside two games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the win column (and three behind the Los Angeles Dodgers), so the quickest way they could gain ground would be to play multiple games against a bad team in the same day.
Lucky for them, the schedule gods have concurred!
The Brewers open a four-game, three-day weekend series against the Reds in Great American Ball Park this afternoon, where the depleted Reds will try to stave off sinking even further into the depths of the standings. Yesterday’s 9th inning heroics saved them from being swept at home at the hands of the lowly Oakland A’s, but at 64-70 they’re just a game and a half ahead of Pittsburgh in the cellar of the Central and a ghastly 9 games removed from the final Wild Card spot.
The Reds aren’t mathematically eliminated from the postseason yet, even though FanGraphs now has their odds of making said postseason at 0.0%. Miracles in baseball can and do happen, after all, though any chance of the Reds getting that lucky pretty well needs to begin right this minute.
Nick Martinez will toe the rubber for the Reds in the matinee of the day (12:40 PM ET start), while hot prospect Rhett Lowder and his epic lettuce will get the start in the 6:40 PM ET evening affair while making his big league debut.
Quite the day of baseball it shall be, I suppose!
