Baseball with its long seasons is a funny sport. Last Friday the Cubs’ magic number had dropped seven points despite the Brewers having only lost one game that week. Although we were on fire, we didn’t pick up any games on them in terms of the standings, which was frustrating. (Although at this point, the magic number matters more.)
Of course, as a Cubs fan I’m historically more often on the other side of that divide, and I can testify that it’s far more frustrating to be the second place team playing on fire and still not gaining any ground. And then…sure enough.
This last week the Cubs have been awful (as to my regret I saw in person on Tuesday’s frickin’ four-plus hour loss), and have now lost a season high five in a row. And what happens? The Brewers go into a slump at the exact same time. Talk about how frustrated they must be in Milwaukee.
And so, despite our dip–and I’ve been anticipating a bad week for several months now, so I’m not freaking–our magic number has still dropped from 23 to 18. At this point I’d like to see a good week, say, Cubs winning four and the Brewers losing three. Hardly an outrageous scenario, and we could easily do better than that. But I’m calling a magic number of 11 for next week.
Our magic number to get into the wild card over the Cards, meanwhile, stands at 14.
