National League Scheduling Schadenfreude

"Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble." Carl Jung

As promised, part two of this unnecessarily interminate and insipid examination of the nuances of the schedules of playoff contenders. For the sake of variety, I have compiled a short list of the usual suspects of possible postseason palookas and paladins for the National League this time. We can begin by eliminating Atlanta and San Fransisco from the scheduling analysis. The races in the East and the West are already over and maybe it's time for Bob Costas to call off his elimination of the wildcard dogs. Without the wildcard, only the three teams of the NL Central would have anything to play for. With the wildcard, the field of teams who still have an interest in the season grows from three to possibly seven teams. With my team in the dumper since the spring thaw, the feeling here is that the more teams with a chance, the more reason to keep forcing myself to listen to Tim McCarver belabor, rant and whine his way through another postseason game, one painful point after another.

Philadelphia Phillies: 60% of the rest of their games this season will be at home where they've won 58% of the time. Hardly an overwhelming advantage. The other thing to consider is that as the race gets tighter, so will Larry Bowa. Playing before some of the most vicious and unforgiving fans in baseball will add heat to the Bowa pressure cooker. Playing the Marlins, who have outscored the Phillies by a 51-28 margin while beating them the last eight consecutive times they've met, will add more heat still to the Bowa pressure cooker. From the 16th to the 25th of September, in the heat of the race, the Phillies will play the Marlins six out of nine games. Since the Allstar break, the Phillies pitching staff has gone 11-10 with a 3.78 ERA while the Marlins pitching staff has gone 13-5 with a 3.07 ERA and have held opponents to a .230 batting average. Wishful thinking and momentum must have a role somewhere in there. Predicted win total: 91.

Florida Marlins: The Marlins are substantially better in the humidity of home than on the road. Maybe it's the fact that the days of 50 person crowds and a swarm of mosquitoes, at least for the next month or two, are over as the Marlins set out to recapture the blistered and South Beach clubbed hearts of their fans once again. Pshaw. The achilles heel on the road is that their pitching sucks away from home. The Marlins have a team ERA of 3.07 at home. On the road, it's an potbellied 5.14. They suck everywhere but Florida and Philadelphia, where they have won their last five in a row. But here's two or three salient facts to swing the balance: The Marlins have a .595 winning percentage in their division. They finish the season with 26 of their final 29 games against the NL East. On the other side of the coin, 26 of the Phillies final 33 games will be against their NL East brethren and The Phillies have a losing record against their NL East brethren. That makes for good breakfast conversation. "I've got a feeling we're going to make the playoffs," said Jack McKeon, the 72-year-old manager who has infused youthful energy into the franchise. This will be important information during the Larry Bowa Meltdown. Predicted win total: 93

St. Louis Cardinals: At this point I might as well confess. I think the wildcard is a two horse race between Florida and Philadelphia. We still have the three team race for the NL Central, though. The Cardinals have managed to squeak along at .500 since the break. Here's a problem: Since 2001, starter Jack Morris has been their workhorse and their ace. He started at least 32 games and pitched more than 210 innings in each of the last two seasons. Now he's on the DL with a fractured index finger. He managed to start 20 games and pitch 125 innings before then, but let's face it, 8-6 with a 4.16 ERA and a cranky shoulder isn't the kind of quality starts the Cardinals can usually look forward to. All this while Woody Williams unravels before our eyes. He's given up 17 runs in his last 25 2/3 innings, quite nearly breaking the 6.00 ERA over his last four starts. This isn't T-ball. The Cardinals can't just outscore their opponents everytime Williams gives up 10 runs with his first 20 pitches. Let's say that if you can't see their ending yet, it should be readily apparent by the time they finish up a five game series against the Cubs in Wrigley Field the first week of September. Predicted win total: 84.

Houston Astros: Much like the Cardinals, the Astros have their alleged ace on the DL. When Roy Oswalt went down for the third time of the season with a recurring groin muscle injury you had to wonder just what it is exactly that he does in all those hours alone in the bullpen on off days. If you were waiting for an answer as to how the Astros would respond to the loss of Oswalt, don' t look now, but they were somehow able to sign miracle arm with the 6.61 ERA from the pen, Rick White. White's carcass was barely cold after being left for dead on the waiver wire by the recalcitrant Chicago White Sox. So, let's see the math on this roster exchange. Lose Oswalt. Gain Rick White. Well, the starting rotation is a little weaker but the bullpen is clearly strengthened by the addition of White. Think of it this way: If White sets up for Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner just imagine how overconfident and overswinging the opponents will be when Dotel and Wagner start throwing. It'll be like going from pepper to a 100 mph fastball at your head. They have a big 12 game homestand when they'll face the Cubs, Cincinnati, the Dodgers, who will probably already have given up the season and the Padres who, like the Mets, are hoping to make it to the 2013 World Series. Predicted win total: 87.

Chicago Cubs: Is it surprising that the Cubs have a losing record at Wrigley? Do you know who else pretending to be a playoff contender has a losing record at home? No One. That's who. Those are pretty stiff odds. Their best hope may be a 9 game road trip from the 19th to the 28th of September through Houston, Arizona and St. Louis. Otherwise, well, there isn't much to hope for other than a sudden and oppressive heat wave, like the one they're having over in Europe right now, hitting Chicago and the cities of all their opponents so that Dusty Baker can lead his tropically superior minority DNA squad to merciless victories as they repeatedly vanquish their heat sensitive and ill-prepared opponents one by one. Predicted win total: 86

Unfortunately, there are no more "real" contenders left in Santa's bag so, as you can infer from the above, the end of season projections run along the lines of this:

NL East: Atlanta Braves 98-64
NL Central: Houston Astros 87-75
NL West: San Francisco 95-67
NL Wildcard: Florida Marlins 93-69

The highly controversial, not to mention flammable Team BPA is cited below as an indication of future events:

Team BPA

SF Giants .874
Houston .852
Florida .849
Atlanta .838

Postseason

Houston over Atlanta. The Braves have beaten the Astros in the last 3 postseason series' they've met in, taking 9 out of 10 games. My guess is, Rick White will be the final piece of the puzzle as the Astros go against history and upstage the Braves. They haven't been in the NLCS since the Mets beat them in 1986. 1986 was the year the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. The Space Shuttle Columbia exploded this year. You do the math.
San Francisco just barely squeaking, like drug enhanced lab rats, past the Marlins.
San Francisco somehow advances to the World Series over the Astros despite Rick White's hard work in the bullpen.

A few days ago, when I put together the AL assessment, I picked Seattle to go all the way to the World Series and then they turned around and pissed on my plans by trading for Armandogeddon. What will happen this time around? Will the Giants now call Mitch Williams out of retirement? A nice, unexpected pleasure would be to see Felipe Alou and Barry Bonds accomplish what the evolutionary Dusty Baker could not. Win a World Championship with the Giants.