Watchability Rankings: Pirates face Cubs in week’s must-see series

The format pits the top two non-division winners in each league against each other in a one-game playoff, the victor of which advances to the real playoffs.

Jacob deGrom (13-7, 2.40) faces a Marlins team that’s averaged just 2 1/2 runs over its last eight games, including just four runs over three games against the Nationals last the weekend. Under the old format, Pittsburgh would have gone directly to the real playoffs each year. Aside from their three game-series with the Pirates at PNC Park, which began Monday, they play two more with Cincinnati, four with Milwaukee, with both of those series at Busch Stadium, and three at Atlanta.

Hitting Notes *The Washington Nationals lead the major leagues in runs scored in September, batting.288 so far this month. The fans know it and the players certainly know it. This is a young team and they were not expected to be this good this soon. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman emphasized this when the format was announced in 2012.

The Cardinals have already clinched a playoff spot. However, there is literally no conceivable playoff format that could guarantee that every late season game is meaningful, even for prospective playoff teams. He threw 107.1 innings in the first half, and since surpassing last year’s total, has seen opposing hitters’ OPS go up 106 points, with an ERA of 3.32.

This season is an excellent example of a case in which the new format discourages effort from teams. But will Pittsburgh or Chicago host the National League Wild-Card Game that will see one of these two NL Central rivals get bounced from the postseason?

If Choate pitches twice more and Rosenthal makes five more appearances in the Cardinals’ final 11 regular-season games, it will give St. Louis four pitchers with 70 relief outings on the season.

Doubting the Cardinals is unsafe business because of how good they have been in October for years, but this time, because of all they have had to do to get to where they are, it looks different. The home teams are 2-4. But, if you can’t generalize about home field advantage based on one game, how can you argue that a single game is a good way to decide which team gets to go forward in the playoffs? The New York Mets finished below.500 previous year. Never fear, Manfred can produce a different one! “That’s the next sequential question”, the commissioner said in an interview with FOX Sports. I’m going to assume, for the objective of this exercise, that the Cubs have defeated the Pirates in the wild-card game and are going on to face the Cardinals in the best-of-five Division Series. Jayson Stark made this argument on ESPN in 2012.

The Cubs were two games behind the Pirates with 12 to go.

Now consider the record this season at Wrigley Field of Gerrit Cole, who is scheduled to start the wildcard game for the Pirates: 1-0 with 1.50 ERA, a 1.00 WHIP, a.244 BAA a.533 OPS-against and no home runs in 12 innings.

The Pittsburgh Pirates won the series opener in Colorado by a score of 9-3, and high scoring games have been the norm at Coors Field lately.