{"id":885538,"date":"2026-09-06T12:54:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T12:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885538\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T12:54:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T12:54:30","slug":"sb-nation-reacts-the-cubs-will-be-the-first-wild-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885538\/","title":{"rendered":"SB Nation Reacts: The Cubs will be the first Wild Card"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cubs fans and fans across the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">These sorts of surveys can be pretty fickle, especially when the Wild Card standings are changing nearly on a daily basis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">To recap: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bleedcubbieblue.com\/chicago-cubs-analysis\/231642\/sb-nation-reacts-survey-cubs-2026-finish\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I asked you on Tuesday<\/a> where you thought the Cubs would finish the regular season. At the time, the Cubs held the first Wild Card spot. They have since fallen out of that spot and trail the Phillies by half a game. I\u2019d think most of us would agree that if it\u2019s Cubs\/Phillies in a Wild Card series, we\u2019d like those games to be played at Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">And a plurality of voters in the SB Nation Reacts survey said that\u2019s what will happen:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Fortunately, most of you are optimistic enough that the Cubs will, in fact, make the postseason \u2014 only four percent were negative enough to vote \u201cmiss the postseason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Should be an interesting ride the rest of the way. Three weeks to go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The national questions asked of SB Nation Reacts respondents all had to do with home runs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This includes both leagues, but Kyle Schwarber and Pete Crow-Armstrong have both hit more home runs than anyone in the American League. And, in fact, this race has tightened considerably since the survey was taken. Schwarber\u2019s last home run was Aug. 26 in Seattle; since then he\u2019s 4-for-23 with no long balls and still has 40.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Meanwhile, PCA has gone wild over the last week. Since Aug. 26, when he trailed Schwarber 40-33 in the home run race, the Cubs center fielder has batted .344\/.382\/.906 with six home runs, including his three-homer day against the Reds, and now trails the Phillies DH by just one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Again\u2026 should be an interesting race the last three weeks and if these two teams meet up in the Wild Card round\u2026 something else to watch!<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This is more just a matter of opinion. In general, 40-45 has been the high range for homer hitters in recent years, though Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh, among others, blasted through that on their way to 60+ home run seasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It looks like this one will be right. Schwarber and PCA might be the only ones to top 40. Junior Caminero, Matt Olson and Yordan Alvarez all have 37, so they could hit that mark as well, as could Hunter Goodman (36) and Ben Rice (35).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Thanks for participating!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,271721,462,82],"class_list":["post-885538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago-cubs-analysis","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}