The Cubs are off today, so I wanted to take a few moments to talk about the fates of two other NL Central teams with just six games left on the schedule. Sweeping the Cubs in Cincinnati pushed the Reds to four games over .500 and into a tie with the Mets, over whom they own the tiebreaker. That means the team from the Queen City simply keeping pace with the team from Queens will see Terry Francona guiding his team to October baseball.
They’re doing it behind one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, with an aggregate 118 ERA+ (adjusted for ballpark where 100 is average and bigger is better) that leads MLB and an 88 ERA- (100 is average, smaller is better) that is tied for third.