Chicago Baseball: time to get lucky

The Major League Baseball season is about one third complete. Things do not look well for either the Chicago White Sox or the Chicago Cubs.

Let’s study the White Sox first. Their best chance of getting into the playoffs is catching the Detroit Tigers for the Wild Card spot. The Tigers have a .566 winning percentage. Thus the White Sox, currently with a .490 w/p, must go 68-45 (.602 w/p) the rest of the season to reach a .566 w/p. The White Sox go into today with a five game losing streak. Only exuberant optimism allows one to believe they can do it.

The Cubs are in even worse shape. Their best chance is to catch Milwaukee for the division title. The Milwaukee Brewers have a .556 w/p. The Cubs, currently with a .423 w/p, must go 68-42 (.618 w/p) to catch the Brewers. The Cubs have lost 9 of their last 10 games. Yes, I grant Milwaukee is sliding a bit, but the Cubs are sliding faster.

Of course, the White Sox and Brewers might be vastly better teams than their records indicate. However, with about a third of the season over that seems improbable. Only pure luck will get the job done if they hope to make the playoffs. At least in Cubs’ case, here’s to pure luck.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow."

The bright side is that my Pippin’s fantasy baseball team, the Kernels, is in first place by a wide margin.