It was a disastrous week for the Chicago Cubs, as they were swept by the Milwaukee Brewers and now find themselves at-risk of opening the playoffs on the road. <\/p>\n
The Cubs still have a very good chance of making the postseason, but they now trail the Philadelphia Phillies by 1.5 games in the race for the top wild card spot, a spot that would leave them traveling to the City of Brotherly Love for a best-of-three series. <\/p>\n
As for the Brewers, their magic number to clinch the Central Division now stands at six after the sweep over the Cubs, with Milwaukee holding a tiebreaker after going 9-4 against their rivals this season. <\/p>\n
Here are the National League Wild Card standings: <\/p>\n
Philadelphia Phillies 82-64 <\/p>\n
Chicago Cubs 81-66 <\/p>\n
San Diego Padres 78-68 <\/p>\n
Arizona Diamondbacks 78-69 (0.5 GB) <\/p>\n
What is the Cubs\u2019 magic number? <\/p>\n
As of Thursday, the Cubs\u2019 magic number to clinch a playoff spot stands at 12, with the Arizona Diamondbacks\u2019 loss on Wednesday dropping that number by one. <\/p>\n
If the season ended today…..<\/p>\n
If the 2026 regular season were to end now, the Cubs would be traveling to Philadelphia for a best-of-three wild card series against the Phillies, who currently lead the Cubs by 1.5 games in the race for the top wild card spot in the National League. <\/p>\n
The Padres would hold the third wild card spot, and they would travel to Atlanta to face the Braves in a best-of-three series. <\/p>\n
The Milwaukee Brewers have the best record in the National League, and they would earn a bye into the National League Division Series, as would the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose magic number to clinch the National League West has fallen to just six. <\/p>\n
The Road Ahead <\/p>\n
After their disastrous series in Milwaukee, the Cubs will have to try snapping a four-game losing streak on Friday when they take on the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field for the first game of a three-game series. <\/p>\n
After that series the Cubs will welcome the National League East-leading Braves to Chicago for a three-game series. <\/p>\n
The Phillies are taking on the Houston Astros in their series finale on Thursday, then will head to Atlanta for a critical three-game series against the Braves. The Phillies trail the Braves by 3.5 games in the East, so a series win could potentially keep them alive in that race. <\/p>\n
The Padres are also off on Thursday, and they\u2019ll start a seven-game road trip on Friday as they take on the Giants and the Rockies in the coming week. <\/p>\n
Finally, the Diamondbacks will start a homestand on Friday when they take on the Texas Rangers and Miami Marlins at Chase Field in Phoenix. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a disastrous week for the Chicago Cubs, as they were swept by the Milwaukee Brewers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[357115,363,99],"class_list":["post-843455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-cubs-playoff-push","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}