A Wild Card Game of Inches

This postseason has had no shortage of stories: Utley's slide, Gibbons leaving in Cecil to pitch to Napoli, the Royals' singles vs. the Astros' homers, Price in long relief in a blowout, Molina's thumb...yet to Pirates fans, we're on the outside looking in. We're still stuck on Jake Arrieta's shutout last Wednesday in the wild card game. During last night's Cubs-Cardinals game, a lot of Pirates followers must've said, as my wife did, while watching Arrieta surrender four runs on five hits and two walks in five and two-thirds innings, "Why couldn't he have pitched that way against the Pirates?" After all, he was unhittable against the Bucs: Complete game shutout, five hits and no walks, eleven strikeouts. The Pirates didn't have a chance.

Except...they sort of did. This article by Dave Cameron of FanGraphs is the best post-mortem I've read of the wild card game. It's not long, and it's a good read, but if you want to skip it, Cameron's point is that the Pirates did have a chance against Arrieta. In the sixth inning, Arrieta hit third baseman Josh Harrison. Sandwiched around Harrison's stroll to first, four Pirates batters absolutely smoked four batted balls. Each left their bats traveling over 100 miles per hour. Balls hit that hard are usually base hits, often for extra bases. But instead, the Pirates got:

• Pinch hitter Travis Snider, single
• Right fielder Gregory Polanco, lineout
• Center fielder Andrew McCutchen, reached on error, runners advanced one base
• Left fielder Starling Marte, grounded into double play

Now, this wasn't all bad luck on the Pirates' part. Every one of the batted balls was hit on the ground or on a line drive. None of them were hit in the air, where they would've had a good chance of landing in the outfield for extra bases, or over the fence, and that's due at least in part to Arrieta's skill as a pitcher. But other than Snider, every one of the Pirates' screaming hits went right to a Cubs infielder--Polanco to third baseman Kris Bryant, who made a juggling catch on the fly, and McCutchen and Marte to shortstop Addison Russell, who couldn't handle McCutchen's shot but turned Marte's into an inning-ending twin killing. Let's say those balls were hit just a couple inches to the left or right of where they were. Snider singles up the middle. Polanco's rocket goes down the left field line, resulting in a double, runners on second and third. Harrison's hit, loading the bases. McCutchen singles to center, runners advancing a base, and Marte does the same. Now it's a 4-2 game with one out and the bases loaded. Or maybe Harrison scores on Marte's single, making it 4-3. One out, Cervelli and Walker due up. It would've been a different ballgame, and it turned on a four balls that were nailed, going right into fielders' gloves, instead of just out of their reach. 

Next Up: The Chicago Cubs

The Pirates have won six in a row, after having dropped four in a row (including three to the Cubs). Here's how the National League Central standings looked on the morning of September 19, before the Pirates embarked on their hot streak, taking two in Los Angeles from the Dodgers and four in Denver from the Rockies:

      St. Louis   92  55  ---
      Pittsburgh  87  60  5.0
      Chicago     86  61  6.0

And here's what a six-game winning streak buys you:

      St. Louis   97  56  ---
      Pittsburgh  93  60  4.0
      Chicago     89  63  7.5

Best record in baseball over the past week, and all it yields is one game against the division leader and one and a half over your nearest rival. The top of this division is just ridiculous.

How Are They Doing Lately? Continuing on that theme, over the past 30 days, the Cubs have a 16-12 record, fifth best in the league, trailing the Cardinals (17-11) by a game and the Pirates (18-11) by a game and a half. That makes the Cubs a game short of joining the Cardinals and Pirates as playing .600-plus ball over the past 30 days. During that period, the Cubs have scored 4.8 runs per game, fourth in the league, while giving up 4.1 runs per game, the sixth fewest. The Pirates are one slot ahead of the Cubs in both categories, scoring 4.9 and giving up 4.0 per game. 

What's Going Right? Not a lot has changed since the teams met in Pittsburgh a week and a half ago. Cubs starting pitchers have the second best ERA in the league, 3.49, over the past 30 days, with the third highest strikeout rate, third lowest walk rate, fourth lowest rate of hard contact allowed, third highest rate of inducing swings outside the strike zone, and lowest rate of home runs allowed on fly balls. The bullpen's been less spectacular but still good: 3.49 ERA, sixth in the league, with the fourth highest strikeout rate and second highest rate of ground balls induced. At the plate, the Cubs are fair at getting on base (their .253 batting average over the last 30 days is tenth in the league and their .329 on base percentage is seventh) but they've got power. Their .428 slugging percentage is third in the league, powered by the most doubles and third most homers in the league over the past 30 days. That gives them a .175 isolated slugging average (slugging percentage minus batting average, measuring pure power), second only to the Mets.

What's Going Wrong? Two pitching measures that tend to regress toward the mean are batting average on balls in play and percentage of baserunners left stranded. A team that's unusually good has probably been a little lucky, and a team that's unusually bad has probably been a little unlucky. The Cubs bullpen has the third-lowest batting average on balls in play and the fourth-highest strand rate in the league over the past 30 days, which suggests they haven't been as good as they've seemed. The Cubs hitters present a particular challenge for the Pirates pitching staff because the Cubs generate a lot of fly balls--their ratio of ground balls to fly balls is the third lowest in the league over the past 30 days--while the Pirates pitchers, as you probably know, rely on grounders, with the second highest ground ball/fly ball ratio in the league over the same period. Just as with lefty/righty platoons, fly ball hitters tend to do well against ground ball pitchers, and vice-versa. So the fly ball-happy Cubs batters could pose problems for the grounder-focused Pirates hurlers. On the other hand, the Pirates, somewhat contrary to their pitch-to-contact reputation, generate a fair number of strikeouts, with the fifth-highest K rate in the league over the past 30 days, and the Cubs are free swingers, with the second-highest strikeout rate and highest rate of whiffs on swings (26%) over the past 30 days. If the Pirates pitchers succeed, it may be less by generating ground balls and more by generating strike three against the whiff-prone Cubs.

Who's Hot? Jake Arrieta is the Pirates' main impediment to advancing in the postseason. He's the logical candidate to start a wild card play-in game against the Pirates, and he seems unstoppable. Over the past 30 days, the majors' first 20 game winner has a 0.43 ERA. He's allowed a .182 batting average on balls in play and he's stranded 93% of the runners who've gotten on base, which indicates a little luck, but you need good luck hitting against him: 42 strikeouts, 24 hits plus walks over his last 42 innings. He starts Sunday night's ESPN game. Kris Bryant, solidifying his Rookie of the Year credentials, has a .330 batting average, .377 on base percentage, and .585 slugging percentage over the past 30 days, though he's struck out in nearly a third of his plate appearances. His 23 RBI over the period tie him for third in the league. Starlin Castro, who has emerged as the team's top second baseman, has put up even better numbers, .386/.413/.643, albeit in more limited play. Corner outfielder Chris Coghlan (aka the guy whose takeout slide seriously injured the Pirates' Rookie of the Year contender and best second-half player, Jung Ho Kang) has a .375 on base percentage over the past 30 days, and first baseman Anthony Rizzo's is .361. 

Who's Not? Tomorrow afternoon's starter, Jason Hammel, may be pitching himself into the Cubs' bullpen during the postseason; he has a 6.20 ERA over the past 30 days and hasn't allowed fewer than three runs in a start in over a month. Rookie shortstop Addison Russell flashes impressive leather but is hitting just .181 with a .258 on base percentage over the past 30 days, and rookie left fielder Kyle Schwarber has a .176 batting average and .291 on base percentage over the same period. Schwarber's whiffed in nearly a third of his plate appearances, Russell almost 37% of his. 

What's the Outlook? The last Cubs series was a disaster for the Pirates, losing three straight after winning the first game, culminated by the season-ending (and, very possibly, 2016 season-delaying) injury to Kang. And those games were in Pittsburgh. Now they travel to Chicago after playing yesterday afternoon in the Mountain time zone (the Cubs had the day off) for two afternoon games followed by a Sunday night game. The latter game means they'll be wrapping up their Sunday six hours later than the Cardinals, who'll be at PNC for three do-or-die games starting Monday. So there are all sorts of ways for the Pirates' internal clocks to get messed up, relative to those of the Cubs and Cardinals. Plus, we'll find out, as some have posited, whether four games in the altitude of Coors Field screws up hitters' swings and timing. (One guy whose swing probably won't be affected: Andrew McCutchen has hardly had a chance to swing, having walked 13 times in his last 21 plate appearances.) Taking two of three in Chicago--a necessity if the Pirates are going to have a shot at catching the Cardinals and getting reasonable distance between themselves and the Cubs in the battle for home field advantage in the wild card game--strikes me as a tall order.

Next Up: The Chicago Cubs

      St. Louis   89  54  ---
      Pittsburgh  86  45  2.5
      Chicago     82  60  6.5

All three teams are going to the postseason. According to FanGraphs, the odds of the Cardinals and Pirates reaching the postseason are 100%, and the Cubs are at 99.3%. (The National League is really boring this year; other than the Cards, Pirates, Cubs, Mets, and Dodgers, no team has even a 1% chance of making the postseason, per FanGraphs.) But how they get there is still up in the air. By the end of play Thursday, the Cardinals, who open a three-game set against the Brewers tonight, could be in first or second. The Pirates, whose first of four games with the Cubs started shortly before I hit the "publish" key, could be in first, second, or tied for second with the Cubs. The Cubs could be in third or tied for second. The first place team will open a Divisional Series at home, in all likelihood. The second place team will host the third place team for a one-game wild-card play-in, then, after a day's rest, travel to a Divisional Series, most likely against the NL Central's first place team. Long and short of it, this could be a pretty important three weekdays in September for determining the postseason for the three NL Central teams.

How Are They Doing Lately? Over the past 30 days, the Cubs have a 15-12 record, tying them with the Nationals for the fourth best record in the league after the Mets (20-7), Dodgers (17-9), and Pirates (18-10). They've scored 5.3 runs per game, fourth most in the league, one slot ahead of the Pirates at 4.7. They've allowed 4.8 runs per game, tying them with the Mets for the sixth most (or the ninth fewest); the Pirates, at 3.6 runs allowed per game, have given up the third fewest. 

What's Going Right? The team's tenth in batting average (.250) and ninth in on base percentage (.321) but they have the second highest slugging percentage in the league, .479, over the past 30 days. That's because they're second to the Mets in home runs and tied for second in triples. There's a lot of swing-and-miss in the Cubs lineup--they've struck out in 27% of their plate appearances over the past 30 days, easily the most in the league, and they have the lowest rate of contact on swings--but when they hit the ball, they hit it hard, with the third-highest rate of hard contact and the highest rate of fly balls becoming home runs. The starting pitchers' 3.89 ERA over the last 30 days is the fourth-best in the league, with the highest strikeout rate and the second-lowest walk rate. However, as I'll discuss in the Who's Hot section, a lot of that has been one guy.

What's Going Wrong? When the Cubs' starters leave the game, the bullpen takes over. Cubs relievers have a 5.20 ERA over the past 30 days, the third highest in the league. Their strikeout and walk rates have been OK but they've allowed the third highest rate of home runs per nine innings in the league. There's been some bad luck mixed in--batting average on balls in play and baserunners stranded are driven to a degree by good fortune, and the Cubs bullpen's allowed the highest batting average on balls in play and the lowest strand rate over the past 30 days--but the bullpen's clearly not as good as the starting rotation.

Who's Hot? Jake Arrieta, who'll start Wednesday night's game, has been pretty unhittable over the last 30 days: 0.24 ERA, 23 baserunners and 41 strikeouts over 37 innings. The reset of the rotation...not so much. Tuesday afternoon's starter, Jason Hammel, has been legitimately bad (6.04 ERA over the past 30 days, with six homers, nine walks, and 30 hits over 25.1 innings), and the other two starters, Jon Lester (Tuesday night) and Kyle Hendricks (Thursday afternoon) have ERAs north of 4.50. So the success of Cubs starters has been largely the work of Arrieta, though Hendricks and Lester have both been somewhat unlucky. Closer Hector Rondon has a 2.00 ERA, seven saves, and eleven strikeouts in nine innings over the past 30 days.

Kris Bryant, mired in a slump the last time the Pirates faced the Cubs, has been on fire, with a .324 batting average, .373 on base percentage, and .627 slugging percentage, with eight homers and 26 RBI over the past 30 days. Center fielder Dexter Fowler leads the club with a .393 on base percentage from the leadoff spot, along with a .546 slugging percentage. Corner outfielder Chris Coghlan has a .299/.386/.584 slash line, and Starlin Castro, who was the team's shortstop at the start of the year but now has been limited to part-time duty at second, is at .359/.369/.594.

Who's Not? Several Cubs hitters have been feast-or-famine over the past 30 days. Left fielder Kyle Schwarber has eight homers but a .174 batting average and .288 on base percentage over the past 30 days. First baseman Anthony Rizzo has six homers, a .198 batting average, and a .302 on base percentage. Shortstop Addison Russell also has six homers, but a .241 batting average and .281 on base percentage. So they've made outs when you can keep them in the park. As for the bullpen, As for the bullpen, no reliever with ten or more innings pitched has an ERA below 4.35. 

What's the Outlook? This should be a fun four games. Obviously, the goal here is to keep the Cubs hitters from leaving the yard, and getting to Chicago's bullpen. It's be great to make up more ground on the Cardinals, mired in a 3-9 slump, but splitting the four games may be all the Pirates can get.

What's Going On With Andrew McCutchen?

Andrew McCutchen is...well, choose your cliche. The best player on the Pirates, the face of the franchise, the team's superstar...you name it. He was the National League MVP in 2013 and finished third in 2014, when he arguably had a better season, leading the league in on base percentage and OPS. This year, so far, not so much:

Year	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2013	583	97	185	38	5	21	84	27	10	78	101	.317	.404	.508	.911	157
2014	548	89	172	38	6	25	83	18	3	84	115	.314	.410	.542	.952	166
2015	59	10	11	2	0	2	11	0	1	9	12	.186	.315	.322	.637	81

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 4/27/2015.

I've fretted in the past about his health. Yesterday, I noted that this is the worst hitting streak of his career. (I was wrong, it wasn't; keep reading.) What's wrong?

Is This Unusual?

No. McCutchen is a slow starter. April is, by far, his worst month of the season. Here are his career totals:

Month	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
April/March	140	533	79	139	32	1	17	67	27	9	65	102	.261	.347	.420	.767
May	134	491	77	156	23	6	19	60	26	6	72	87	.318	.406	.505	.911
June	156	610	107	196	48	10	21	108	27	5	68	127	.321	.394	.536	.930
July	146	552	90	170	36	8	25	85	18	7	67	106	.308	.382	.538	.920
August	155	573	99	165	29	4	24	80	24	14	79	109	.288	.377	.478	.855
Sept/Oct	167	599	106	171	34	7	24	73	21	10	103	127	.285	.398	.486	.883

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/27/2015.

At this point in his career, McCutchen has played about a full season's worth of games in each month. His April numbers are roughly 25% worse than his overall figures. He's a slow starter.

This year, as you can see, after 18 games, he's got a .186/.315/.322 slash line, giving him a .637 OPS, which is 19% worse than the National League average (OPS+ of 100 is 100% of the league average, so his 81 is 19% below league average). He's never started this slowly before. But during his MVP year of 2013, on the morning of April 30, he'd hit .203/.225/.319 over his prior 18 games, a .544 OPS--worse than his performance so far this season. So a wretched 18-game streak in Apirl isn't unprecedented. 

Looking at all the 18-game periods over his career, his .186 batting average this year is his worst since April 2011, his .315 on base percentage is his worst since September 2014, and his .322 slugging percentage and .637 OPS are his worst since August 2014. It's been a bad start to the season, but certainly not his worst 18-game streak, nor unusually bad for him. 

Still, when something like this falls at the beginning of the year, it's natural to wonder whether anything's different this year. I'll explore that next.

Is He Being Pitched Differently?

There are two rough ways of figuring out how much pitchers fear a hitter: How willing they are to throw their fastball, and how willing they are to pitch in the strike zone. Against weak hitters, pitchers will throw their fastball in the strike zone, daring the hitter to swing at it. Against strong hitters pitchers resort more to trickery: off-speed pitches that they try to get the batter chase outside the strike zone. Per FanGraphs, the five National League players who saw the greatest percentage of fastballs (four-seam and two-seam) last year had a combined .714 OPS. The five who saw the fewest had a combined .851 OPS. The five hitters who saw the largest percentage of pitches in the strike zone had a .662 OPS, the five who saw the fewest had a .779 OPS. So are pitchers going after McCutchen differently?
            % fastballs  % in zone
     2013      50.2%       48.2%
     2014      49.2%       47.4%
     2015      44.8%       46.3%
No evidence of any change. By limiting the fastballs and the number of pitches in the strike zone to McCutchen, pitchers are still treating him as a dangerous hitter.

Is He Swinging Differently?

When hitters lose plate discipline, they start swinging at pitches that they can't hit. That shows up in increased swing percentages and less contact on swings. Here are the percentage of pitches McCutchen's swung at, inside and outside the strike zone, and how often he's made contact:
             % of pitches swung at  % of contact on swings
              in zone    out zone     in zone    out zone
     2013      70.5%       23.7%       87.6%       60.3%
     2014      68.3%       23.7%       85.1%       60.4%
     2015      65.4%       20.9%       87.6%       45.5%
McCutchen's been more selective, not less, this season. He's swinging at fewer pitches. But when he does swing, he's making way less contact on pitches outside the strike zone. This year, out of 87 batting title qualifiers, he's 80th at contact outside the strike zone, near the bottom. Last year, it was middle of the pack: 46th out of 65. So that's an issue, at least so far. 

What Happens When He Makes Contact?

I've already thrown enough numbers your way, so take my word on this: McCutchen's percentage of ground balls, fly balls, and infield flies when he makes contact are in line with his prior performances. 

Three measures involving batted balls stand out, though: his batting average on balls in play (that is, all at bats that don't result in a home run or strikeout), the percentage of his fly balls that are home runs, and the percentage of batted balls that are line drives:
             BA on balls  % of FB     
               in play  that are HR   LD %
     2013       .353       12.4%     24.5%
     2014       .355       13.7%     18.7%
     2015       .191        8.7%      8.2%
Those are all pretty big changes. McCutchen's dropped from tenth in the league in batting average on balls in play (or BABIP) in 2013 and fourth in 2014 to fourth worst so far in 2015. His home run/fly ball percentage was 27th in 2013 and 17th in 2014; it's 48th this year. His line drive percentage has gone from ninth in 2013 to 54th in 2014 to last in 2015.


You know what those measures have in common? Luck. I'm not saying they're entirely luck-driven. McCutchen had a .350+ BABIP in 2013 and 2014 because he's a great hitter, not because he was lucky. Pedro Alvarez has hit over 20% of his fly balls over the fence during his career because he's got a lot of power, not because he's lucky. The Braves' Freddie Freeman leads the NL in line drive percentage over the last three years because he makes solid contact, not because he's lucky. But big variations in these measures, absent anything else, can be a matter of luck. Your swing gets a couple millimeters above the ball, and your line drive becomes a grounder. You hit a fly ball just a few feet short, and it's a fly out instead of a homer. You nail the ball but it's straight at a fielder, and it's an out instead of a hit. That appears to be what's going on with McCutchen so far.

So I'm inclined to attribute McCutchen's slow start to bad luck rather than something wrong with him as a hitter, particularly given his history of slow starts.

Next Up: The Cubs

The Pirates split four games with the Cubs last week and travel to Wrigley for three games starting tonight. Travis Wood, Jason Hammel, and Kyle Hendricks will start for the Cubs, which means the Pirates will once again be denied an opportunity to observe the Jon Lester Pickoff Move Experience. The Cubs, after dropping their last two to the Pirates, swept two games against Cincinnati (one game was postponed) over the weekend. 

The Cubs' best offensive performers have been veterans. Shortstop Starlin Castro (.329) and first baseman Anthony Rizzo (.328) are 1-2 in batting average. Rizzo also leads the club in runs (14), walks (12), on base percentage (.481) and OPS (.963), while Castro leads in hits (23) and RBI (11). But the focus is on the youngsters:

• Right fielder Jorge Soler (23) is hitting .257/.321/.414. He's third on the club in runs scored with nine and second in homers with two. 
• Third baseman Kris Bryant (23) is hitting .333/.476/.455 since being called up. He's batted cleanup for the Cubs since his April 17 callup.
• Second baseman Addison Russell (21) hasn't really gotten untracked yet, as he's 3-for-22 with no walks and 12 strikeouts since his callup on April 21.

How to Beat the Shift

Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco bats and throws left-handed. Like many left-handed batters, he tends to pull ground balls over the the right side of the field, between first and second bases. Here's a spray chart from FanGraphs of his batted balls since he was called up last season. The green dots are grounders. See all the ground balls on the right side of the field?

As a result of these tendencies, teams often employ a shift when Polanco's batting, with the shortstop standing on one side or the other of second base and the second baseman between first and second, leaving the third baseman alone on the left side of the infield. As I wrote back in January, the 2015 Bill James Handbook notes that shifts reduce the shifted batter's batting average by 30 points. 

There are two solutions for shifts. One is to bunt against them. Here's a pretty good example: 

You don't see a lot of bunt doubles.

The other way to beat the shift is to hit to the opposite field, i.e., a left-handed hitter hitting to the left side of the infield or a right-handed hitter hitting to the right side of the infield. Here, for example, is the spray chart for Giants outfielder Nori Aoki:

You won't see teams shifting against Aoki; he hits the ball all over the place. But he's the exception. Most players pull their grounders. For example, here's Pirates second baseman Neil Walker, who's a switch hitter. When he faces a right-handed pitcher, he bats left, and pulls grounders to the right: 

And when he faces a lefty, he bats right, pulling grounders to the left:

The point is, it's not easy for a batter to change his ways and stop pulling. There's a natural tendency for grounders to go the pull field. Going the other way is hard.

This brings us back to Polanco. As you could see from the chart at the top of this post, he tends to pull grounders. He came up in the seventh inning yesterday against the Cubs, one out, game tied at 4, runners on first and second. He ran the count to 3-2. Then Cubs lefty Phil Coke (note that Polanco has a career .180 batting average against lefties) threw a 96 mph fastball up in the zone (pitch number 8 in the chart below):

The Cubs were shifting against Polanco. Here's how the defense looked as the pitch came to the plate. That's first baseman Anthony Rizzo off the bag at first, second baseman Addison Russell between second and first, and shortstop Starlin Castro just to the left of second base. The runner at second, Josh Harrison, is behind the umpire, but you can see that he's farther from second than Castro, the shortstop. The three infielders are bunched to the right side of the infield, expecting Polanco to pull the ball over there. Third baseman Jonathan Herrera isn't even in the picture, as he's close to the bag to prevent a double and also to deny Harrison an easy stolen base.

And here'w what Polanco did: Grounder to just about the exact place the shortstop Castro would be playing if he weren't shifting. Opposite field single to left, Harrison scores, 5-4 lead for the Bucs that held up. THAT'S beating the shift. (Here's the video of the play; unfortunately, it can't be embedded into this post.) 

The Other Side of the A's-Cubs Trade

Late on the Fourth of July, the Chicago Cubs traded starting pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel to the Oakland A's for three minor leaguers--shortstop Addison Russell, outfielder Billy McKinney, pitcher Dan Straily--and a player to be named later. The analysis of the trade has focused on (1) how it's an all-in, win-now, flags-fly-forever move by Oakland, which already had the best record in baseball, to try to win the World Series, and (2) how the Cubs farm system, already one of the best, is now flush with top prospects. Fair enough. But here's another aspect: The 2014 Cubs have lost two-fifths of their rotation. They were a last-place team with Samardzija and Hammel, and they'll be worse without them. Does that mean anything?

Yes, I think, in two ways. One, it sets up Cubs to improve their position in the next amateur draft. Baseball teams draft amateurs based on the reverse order of standings. Here are eight teams with fewer than 40 wins as I write this:
   Team          W  L  GB
   Houston      37 54  --
   Colorado     37 53 0.5
   Arizona      38 53 1.0
   Texas        38 51 2.0
   Philadelphia 38 51 2.0
   Cubs         38 49 3.0
   Boston       39 50 3.0
   Minnesota    39 49 3.5

Obviously, "games behind" here refers to games behind the team that'll pick first in the draft. As you can see, the race for worst is tight. The Cubs can improve their draft position by losing more.

Second, if the Cubs lose more, it'll benefit the teams they play. In fact, playing against a weak Cubs team could impact all three National League divisional races:

• In the NL Central, the Brewers (first place) and Cardinals (second, 4.0 games out) have ten games left with the Cubs. Reds (fourth, 5.0 games out) have nine. But the Pirates (third, 4.5 games out) have just six. That gives Pittsburgh's opponents more easy games.
• In the NL West, the first-place Dodgers have seven games left with the Cubs. The second-place Giants, one game out, have only three. As if the Dodgers needed help...
• In the NL East, the first-place Braves have three games remaining with the Cubs. The second-place Nationals, half a game behind, have none.

Look, having the Cubs on the schedule was a relative advantage for the Brewers, Cards, Reds, Dodgers, and Braves before the trade was made. Even with Samardzija and Hammel, Chicago wasn't a very good club. But that relative advantage has widened a little. If the races stay tight, the teams now in first may have Cubs President Theo Epstein to thank, in part, for their post-season appearances.