In NL West, second place is the first loser

The winner of this year’s high-stakes Dodgers-Giants pennant race will make the MLB playoffs next month as the National League seed.

The loser’s consolation prize could be an unwanted place in the record books.

Whichever team is content with second place in the NL West, it could have the most wins of any non-division winner in MLB history. Only 10 second-place teams have won more than 100 games. Only the Chicago Cubs of 1909 and the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1942 won 104.

This year’s Giants and Dodgers both appear to be on the verge of surpassing the 100-win mark and possibly even surpassing 104. San Francisco (95-50), incredibly deep and infallibly resilient, has won nine straight wins. to maintain a 2.5-division game record ahead of its longtime rival. The Giants are set to go 106-56 and only need to finish above .500 in their last 17 games to amass 104 wins.

Talented, playoff-proven Los Angeles (93-53) have 30 of 40 wins since the trade deadline… and won a massive half-game against the Giants. The defending World Series champions are set to go 103-59 and are expected to close with 11 wins in their last 16 games to finish with 104 wins.

While sprinting to the end is not a do-or-die like pre-wild-card pennant races were, Major League Baseball’s playoff format prompts the Giants and Dodgers to give. the priority to the victory of the division. The loser will have to survive a win-win play-in match, likely against the Cardinals, Padres or Reds. In other words, whether for the Giants or the Dodgers, a brilliant six-month season will come down to nine random innings against a disappointing 80-win team.

If the Giants or Dodgers lose this play-in game, uproar will be inevitable.

You will hear that the joker game is a blatant cash grab.

You will hear that the single elimination format is unfair.

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You’ll hear that a best of the three, at a minimum, would be fairer so that a juggernaut team’s 100-win season doesn’t deteriorate from just one questionable call or unlucky rebound.

This is all correct, of course. And yet he overlooks the many, many bright spots of the playoff format that MLB embraced nine years ago.

The knockout knockout matches have brought instant energy to a sport in desperate need of ways to attract new fans and larger domestic TV audiences. The final rounds of the MLB playoffs may dazzle or spit out year after year, but wild play has always produced some fascinating moments.

Who can forget this 12-round epic of the A’s-Royals? Or the little-known Conor Gillaspie extending the magic of the even years of the Giants? Or the PNC Park crowd chanting “Cueeeeto, Cueeeeto”, leaving the Reds ace visibly shaken?

Even in the years that the joker games have been messed up, their existence has been a boost to the sport. The extension of the playoffs with the second wild card kept more playoff-relevant teams through the summer. And the threat of having to survive the prelims reinvigorated division races that otherwise would have made no sense if there had been only one wild card per league and this team automatically moved up to the top. division series.

The 104-win Dodgers or Giants over the Cardinals or 84-win Reds will feel a little bad, but so far that scenario is an anomaly, not the norm. Only once has a 100-winning team appeared in a wildcard game – the 2018 Yankees knocked out all 97 A-wins with little problem. Until this season, the biggest difference in the standings between wild opponents has been six modest games.

Neither the Giants nor the Dodgers want their season to be one-game-long, but one pitching staff seem better suited to handle the knockout format than the other.

The Dodgers can line up their rotation so that Cy Young competitor Max Scherzer throws a do or die. Since joining the Dodgers on the trade deadline, Scherzer has won six of eight starts and has a 0.88 ERA. Perhaps the Giants’ best option is Logan Webb, 24, who has been brilliant since the all-star break but has never made the playoffs before. As unfazed as Webb was, the Giants’ depth could shine more in a seven-game streak than in a single must-see showdown.

Either way, the stakes are high for both clubs and the pressure to win is increasing day by day.

Never before has a team won 105 games without winning a division title. As the Giants and Dodgers continue to rack up wins during this captivating pennant race, one of them could soon be the first.