NL West

A 40-year-old woman and her two-year-old son died at Petco Park on Saturday after falling from the third-level concourse, per Lori Weisberg and Gary Robbins of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Homicide Lt. Andra Brown said the two were pronounced dead at 4:11 p.m., shortly before the start of the San Deigo Padres' game against the Atlanta Braves.

Police have not yet determined if the fall was accidental but noted the deaths "appeared to be suspicious."

"Our hearts obviously go out to the family, but also to the people here who could potentially be traumatized who saw this," Brown said. "It’s a horrible, horrible thing. That's why we're giving it a very serious look."

The child's father was also at the ballpark during the time of the deaths.

The Union-Tribune reported an eyewitness saw the child fall first while the woman went over trying to catch the child.

The tragic news comes after a man died in August from a fall at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, although that fall didn't occur during a baseball game.  

The San Francisco Giants became the first MLB team to reach the 100-win milestone in 2021 as they hit four home runs to score a 7-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.

Brandon Crawford, Mike Yastrzemski, Brandon Belt and Tommy La Stella homered for San Francisco, which continues to hold a narrow one-game lead over the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West division race. 

"It's a big deal," Giants manager Gabe Kapler told reporters about win No. 100. "We know our division is extraordinarily talented, but we also know that we're talented. Our goal was to win the division and not just sneak into the playoffs."

San Francisco didn't generate much attention coming into the regular season while playing in the same division as the star-studded Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

The ZiPS preseason projections forecasted the Giants to posted a lackluster 75-87 record and gave them a mere 2.2 percent chance to make the playoffs, per Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs.

Kapler's group came out of the gates hot, winning eight of their first 12 games, and never relented en route to the club's first 100-win campaign since 2003.

Starter Alex Wood gave up two runs with seven strikeouts across four innings, and a quartet of relievers—Kervin Castro, Tony Watson, Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval—combined for five shutout innings out of the bullpen to secure Friday's victory.

"It's a big accomplishment, but we're looking for more," Wood said.

While the Giants clinched a postseason berth back on Sept. 13, they haven't had an opportunity to give key players any added rest because of the tight battle for the division crown.

The Dodgers have been surging with 11 wins in their past 13 games, which could push the NL West race right down to the wire with just over a week left in the regular season.

Prior to 2012, when MLB added a second wild-card team to expand the playoff field to five clubs from each league, the division title was a nice accomplishment but not the be-all and end-all. Now, with the team that comes in second forced into the one-game Wild Card Round, it's crucial to fight for the top spot in the standings.

The Giants are likely to win over 100 games, but if the Dodgers pass them during the final week, their storybook season could come to an abrupt end with one bad outing.

So while San Francisco and Los Angeles would like to give players an extra day off and begin setting up their rotations for the playoffs, they instead have to fight tooth and nail until the NL West is decided, and that could even come down to a tiebreaker game.

The Giants have two more road games against the Rockies this weekend before finishing the regular season with a six-game homestand against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Padres.

If the Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves in a one-game winner-take-all scenario, Max Scherzer will be the pitcher taking the ball. 

Dave Roberts told reporters on Thursday there is "no doubt" in his mind that Scherzer would start either a one-game tiebreaker for the National League West or the NL Wild Card game if the Dodgers are forced to play either scenario. 

"I think he’s the best pitcher in baseball," Roberts added.

There remains a possibility that the Dodgers will have to play both a tiebreaker against the San Francisco Giants and the NL Wild Card game. 

The Giants and Dodgers have already clinched playoff berths, but they are currently separated by two games in the NL West race with 10 games remaining.

Per Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com, the Giants would host the Dodgers at Oracle Park on Oct. 4 if the two teams finish the regular season with the same record. The winner of that game would win the division and advance to the NLDS, with the loser hosting the wild card game on Oct. 6. 

Even though the Dodgers would certainly like to avoid a scenario that requires them to play two must-win games to reach the division series, they are perhaps the team best positioned to handle such a scenario thanks to their strength at the top of the rotation. 

Scherzer has been transcendent since being acquired from the Washington Nationals on July 30. The 37-year-old is 7-0 with a 0.78 ERA, 79 strikeouts and 31 hits allowed in 58 innings over nine starts with Los Angeles.

Roberts also has Walker Buehler available to start in a must-win game. The two-time All-Star ranks fourth in the NL with a 2.58 ERA and 0.98 WHIP in 31 starts this season.    

San Diego Padres stars Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. apologized to fans Tuesday after an outburst in the dugout on Saturday saw the team's top two players involved in a heated exchange. 

Tensions were running high between Tatis and Machado 👀

(via @joe_yancey3)https://t.co/ibQvn12wZ7

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) September 19, 2021

Tatis told reporters the spat was just "part of what this game brings out" when "good players are trying to win and stuff isn't going their way." Machado said the matter was handled within the team, adding:

We got Fernando over here that's about to win the MVP, we've got a team that's trying to compete and get to the World Series. We haven't been playing some great baseball so emotions get involved and get the better of us at times and those are situations that we learn as leaders, as a team, as an organization and we just get better from that. ...We got a lot of years here moving forward.

At the end of August, the Padres were the National League darlings that baseball fans couldn't stop watching and were holding onto a wild card spot that could make them the third NL West team to play in October.

Three weeks later, the vibes around Petco Park couldn't be more different. 

The Padres are now just three games above .500, four games back of the St. Louis Cardinals for the final Wild Card and the club fired its farm system director Sam Geaney amid more significant looming changes. That led to manager Jayce Tingler having to answer questions about his own job security Tuesday with the club losing 24 of its last 34 contests.

"I don't believe I've lost the clubhouse," Tingler said. "I believe a lot in our guys. I have from day one. It's a group that, as frustrating as it is to not play to our potential, it's still a group that I love, that I believe in, and has all the things you want as a team."

That the comment was even necessary from the manager of a team that began the season with World Series expectations says plenty. The fact that tensions between Machado and Tatis reached the level they did says even more about why Tingler had to be pressed on it. 

As Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune noted:

But it occurring, several people in the organization said, is a product of one of the Padres’ most pressing issues: Manager Jayce Tingler does not possess the sway to have quashed a situation that had been brewing for weeks.

How much of that falls directly on Tingler and how much is due to a distrust between players and the front office is debatable. And it really isn’t important. Regardless, the Padres have some fixing to do.

The Padres could still make the postseason and go on the type of epic run they're built for, making this entire episode moot. That doesn't appear likely, however. And that could mean the end of Tingler's time in San Diego.

After such a stunning collapse late in the season, this may only be the first of a few apologies Padres fans have coming their way. 

  

San Diego Padres manager Jayce Tingler told reporters that he does not believe he has lost the clubhouse amid the team losing 24 of its last 34 games to fall to 76-73.

"I don't believe I've lost the clubhouse," Tingler said Tuesday.

"I believe a lot in our guys. I have from day one. It's a group that, as frustrating as it is to not play to our potential, it's still a group that I love, that I believe in, and has all the things you want as a team."

The quote comes three days after Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado were seen having a shouting match in the dugout during the team's 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday.

😳 pic.twitter.com/RU37kBB2Dk

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) September 19, 2021

That defeat marked the second of three losses in a three-game sweep to the team the Padres are chasing in the National League Wild Card race. San Diego is now down four games to the Cards with 13 regular-season matchups remaining.

On Sunday, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that there could be a managerial change following the Padres' disappointing season.

"The shouting match in the dugout Saturday night between Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. in itself was not the problem," Acee wrote.

But it occurring, several people in the organization said, is a product of one of the Padres’ most pressing issues: Manager Jayce Tingler does not possess the sway to have quashed a situation that had been brewing for weeks.

How much of that falls directly on Tingler and how much is due to a distrust between players and the front office is debatable. And it really isn’t important. Regardless, the Padres have some fixing to do.

The 40-year-old Tingler is in his second season managing the Padres.

San Diego went 37-23 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and advanced to the second round of the NL playoffs, where it fell to the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

This year's team still has a fighting chance to earn the second and final NL Wild Card berth, but San Diego has to snap its slump quickly.

The Padres begin a three-game series with the NL West-leading San Francisco Giants on Tuesday.

After their generally gleeful 2020 season ended with them snapping a 13-year postseason drought, the San Diego Padres probably didn't envision any scenario in which 2021 devolved into a gloomy slog punctuated by their two best players getting in each other's faces.

Life, as they say, comes at you fast.

Because they're just 10-24 since Aug. 11 and 4 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League wild-card race, the nadir of San Diego's 2021 season is arguably more of an ongoing thing than a specific moment.

But as a candidate for the latter, it's hard to do better than when Manny Machado lost his cool with a vulgarity-laden tirade at Fernando Tatis Jr. on Saturday:

Tensions were running high between Tatis and Machado 👀

(via @joe_yancey3)https://t.co/ibQvn12wZ7

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) September 19, 2021

Micro-wise, Machado was upset at Tatis for how he reacted to what he saw as a bad strike-three call in the fifth inning. As Padres manager Jayce Tingler, who was ejected for a league-leading seventh time in defense of Tatis, told reporters: "It's not viewed negatively. We're a family. We're not going to discuss the details, but we care."

Macro-wise, however, reporting from Ken Rosenthal, Dennis Lin and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic and Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune paint a picture of a long-bubbling soup of frustration that finally boiled over.

---

The Players Made This Happen

Though they were eventually dispatched by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series, the '20 Padres announced their arrival as an up-and-coming superteam with a 37-23 romp through the shortened season. Then came trades for aces Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove during the winter, and a 34-19 start to the 2021 campaign.

During this span, the Padres were hailed as all sorts of things. The most fun team in baseball? Check. The best team in baseball? Also check. The saviors of baseball? Yup, that too.

Tatis was deservedly the face of all this. His MVP-caliber play and utter disregard for baseball's unwritten rules in 2019 and 2020 netted him a video game cover and a $340 million contract. He then began 2021 by making good on the hype by quickly grabbing the NL leads for both home runs and stolen bases.

A $300 million man in his own right, Machado had actually edged Tatis in the NL MVP voting for 2020. Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers also entered 2021 as name-brand stars. Darvish, Snell and Musgrove, meanwhile, would have combined for a 2.82 ERA and 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings if they had been teammates in 2020.

With this much talent at their disposal, it was no great surprise when the Padres began the '21 season as well as they did. And the sky really did seem to be their limit. According to FanGraphs, San Diego's odds of making the playoffs in any capacity were nearly 100 percent. Of winning the NL West, about 50 percent. Of winning the NL pennant, close to 25 percent.

That was then. This is now, wherein the Padres are 42-54 since their peak on May 29. Those same odds are down to 3.6, 0.0 and 0.4 percent, respectively.

Because the Padres have lost more cumulative days to the injured list than any other team, those who would blame their demise on the injury bug have a gripe.

They have, however, nonetheless gotten at least 27 starts out of each of their three headlining aces, yet only Musgrove has an ERA so much as under 4.00. Darvish (4.13) and Snell (4.20) have simply underperformed. There's also been little to no help from the back end of the rotation, where Chris Paddack and Ryan Weathers each have ERAs north of 5.00.

Further, the Padres are one of only four teams that's gotten as many as 450 plate appearances out of seven different players. The clearest explanation for the team's below average 97 wRC+, therefore, is that not enough guys have pulled their weight.

As their combined OPS is 166 points lower than it was in 2020, Hosmer and Myers are the worst offenders. More recently, Machado and All-Star newcomer Adam Frazier have been cold since the trade deadline. Even more recently, Tatis has fallen into a slump of his own.

That may not be the only reason that Tatis has been, as Acee put it, "brooding" of late. He has put a lot on the line this year, not only playing through a lingering shoulder injury but also agreeing to move from shortstop to the outfield in August. But with both San Diego's playoffs odds and his own MVP chances dwindling, it's looking like it'll all be for naught.

Of course, this is not to suggest that Machado was in the wrong when he confronted Tatis. Until the season is over, the Padres do indeed need Tatis to "play f---ing baseball." 

If this was April, the Padres could hope for Tatis and Machado to make amends and do their part to lead the team to the playoffs. But with the October ship having pretty much sailed, the Padres might count themselves lucky if any further feuding simply happens out of sight.

---

The Manager and GM Also Made This Happen

It's never a good look for a manager when his team had fewer wins than its run differential suggests it should. Per their 79-70 mark, Tingler's Padres would be in possession of the NL's second wild card spot right now if all teams actually had their Pythagorean records.

But while this makes Tingler look bad enough from the outside, it's apparently worse on the inside. Acee's reporting is particularly damning, as he wrote that the impression he's gotten from Padres players is that the second-year skipper is "not the leader they needed or wanted has been growing in some corners of the clubhouse for a while."

Making matters even worse for Tingler is that he's already tried using a human shield, as he insisted that the club's firing of pitching coach Larry Rothschild in August was his call:

Jayce Tingler, on the dismissal of Larry Rothschild: "This was 100 percent my decision." Tingler citing lack of consistency, wanting a new voice for the final weeks of the season.

— Dennis Lin (@dennistlin) August 23, 2021

Heck of a lot of good that's done the Padres. Before firing Rothschild, the Padres had 3.78 ERA. Since firing him, the team's ERA is 4.90.

Unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion forwarded by former Miami Marlins executive-turned-CBS Sports podcaster David Samson: Canning Rothschild was actually general manager A.J. Preller's call.

If so, that would only be Preller's second-biggest failure of the 2021 season.

Atop that list would be his catastrophe of a trade deadline. Though he went hard after Max Scherzer, Preller ultimately only got Frazier, reliever Daniel Hudson and reserve outfielder Jake Marisnick while the Dodgers (Max Scherzer and Trea Turner) and the division-leading San Francisco Giants (Kris Bryant) each scored proper stars.

All told, the guys driving the bus for the Padres this year haven't exactly been steady at the wheel. It may have always been a matter of time before the team's season went off the road.

---

So, What Happens Next?

Has Preller had the sort of season that would get any other front office chief fired? Perhaps. But the Padres just extended him through 2026, so the odds of him getting the axe are slim.

It's also beyond unlikely that the Tatis-Machado duo will be broken up. You don't get rid of two players like that on purpose. Especially not while their one and only public spat was a frustration thing and not a bad-blood thing. And especially not while both players are signed to mega-deals that last well beyond 2021.

And yet there is little doubt at this point that the Padres need to make big changes, starting with the manager's chair.

This is to say that the last few days have turned Tingler from a perhaps acceptable omission from our manager hot seat list to a glaring one. It's also not as if there's some great mystery as to why he couldn't gain better control of this clubhouse. He's only 40 years old, and he neither played nor managed in Major League Baseball before the Padres hired him for the latter job in 2019. It was always a risk, and it has backfired.

If the Padres do give Tingler the boot, his ideal replacement would be somebody with actual experience and bonafides. Should the Houston Astros cut him loose, Dusty Baker would be perfect. Buck Showalter, who formerly managed Machado in Baltimore, is another possibility.

Mind you, hiring a new manager figures to be the easy part.

Free agency will claim only five mostly inconsequential players from the Padres this winter, hence why they already have more money ($162.4 million) committed to 2022 than any other team. So unless Preller gets a blank check from ownership, some large salaries may have to go before he can perfect what's currently a talented, yet flawed roster.

The obvious candidates to go are Hosmer, who's owed $60 million through 2025, and Myers, who's guaranteed $23.5 million through 2022. To get their money off the team's books, Preller would likely have to attach prized talents from the club's farm system so as to allow the other team to effectively buy prospects.

Should Preller succeed there, he might have the capital to circle back on Scherzer in hopes of signing the three-time Cy Young Award winner as a free agent. He might even get in on this winter's stellar class of shortstops, with the idea being to either keep Tatis in the outfield full-time or move the new signee to second base.

For now, the bright side is that the general concept of the Padres as an ultra-talented and fun-loving team doesn't need re-designing. What's needed is more of a precise blueprint, the likes of which shouldn't be unattainable in the weeks and months to come.

---

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.

Fernando Tatis Jr.'s dugout blowout with Manny Machado was reportedly a long time coming.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported the situation had been percolating "for weeks," with some veterans in the clubhouse growing frustrated with Tatis' "brooding" as the team falls out of playoff contention.

Machado was shown needing to be held back in the dugout as he screamed at Tatis after the shortstop-outfielder argued a fifth-inning strikeout. While Tatis was not tossed for the incident, manager Jayce Tingler came out of the dugout to protect Tatis and was tossed.

"It's not viewed negatively," Tingler said. "We're a family. We're not going to discuss the details, but we care. There's passion. There's frustration. Those are all emotions that are natural, and those things happen."

Acee's report said the incident confirmed the suspicion of some in the organization who feel Tingler "does not possess the sway" to command respect from the team. Tingler is in his second season as Padres manager, his first time leading a ballclub.

Padres third-base coach Bobby Dickerson was the first person to approach Tatis over his attitude Saturday. Acee reported Tatis became "incensed" at the admonishment from the coach, with Machado attempting to stand in because of his own bouts of immaturity in the past.

Ken Rosenthal, Dennis Lin and Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic reported the situation was evidence of a "leadership void" in the Padres clubhouse. Tatis' emotions are said to greatly impact the team, whereas Machado has become "preoccupied with matters beyond his control."

The Padres' late-season swoon, combined with tensions in the clubhouse, could spell doom for Tingler despite posting a winning record in each of his two seasons with the franchise. It's possible the team looks for a veteran presence who can command respect from a talented but seemingly moody team. 

Dickerson is also on the hot seat amid "growing finger-pointing within the organization."

As the San Diego Padres continue to struggle, frustrations appear to be boiling over.

On Saturday night, stars Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. were captured on video getting into it in the dugout, with the former yelling "It's not f--king about you" to his counterpart.

Tensions were running high between Tatis and Machado 👀

(via @joe_yancey3)https://t.co/ibQvn12wZ7

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) September 19, 2021

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune provided more context on the confrontation:

This is shortly after Fernando Tatis Jr. had been called out on strikes in the fifth inning. Manny Machado could be heard yelling, “It’s not (expletive) about you.” https://t.co/tq1rhtI95s

— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) September 19, 2021

The Padres (76-71) came into Saturday's matchup with the St. Louis Cardinals having dropped seven of their last 10 games and 22 of their last 32. Once considered a World Series contender, the Padres are now 1.5 games back of the Cardinals for the final National League Wild Card spot.

The wheels have fallen off in San Diego, and tempers are flaring.

We're in the home stretch of the 2021 MLB regular season, which means it's crunch time for potential wild-card teams. 

The AL Wild Card race has all of the drama, the star players and the intrigue of the AL East. Will the New York Yankees, a team many had pegged as a World Series contender before the season began, hold on for a wild-card spot and face the Boston Red Sox in a play-in game? Or will one of those two be undone by the upstart Toronto Blue Jays?

You have to like the odds of a team with two MVP candidates in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Marcus Semien. And don't count out the Oakland A's or the Seattle Mariners out west, the latter of which appears to be heading toward the end of a long, arduous rebuild and could end a 19-year postseason drought. 

The NL Wild Card race, on the other hand, feels more like a race to the bottom. 

The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers have already clinched playoff spots, with the Dodgers occupying the top Wild Card spot and a ridiculous 17-game lead in the standings. One of them will win the NL West while the other will appear in a wild-card game, leaving just one spot left. A group of middling teams are vying for that one spot. It's entirely possible the Giants or Dodgers end up facing a team with a .500 record or worse. 

These teams seem more like pretenders than contenders. 

The San Diego Padres started the season with World Series aspirations but have collapsed in recent weeks. The New York Mets led the NL East throughout the first half of the season but failed to take advantage of a bad division. The ineptitude of the coastal teams has opened the door for two NL Central teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds. 

What can we make of the NL Wild Card race? Let's try to break down the odds for each team with some help from FanGraphs and the site's playoff odds calculator. 

     

St. Louis Cardinals (76-69) 1.0 Game Lead, Playoff Chances: 40%

The only team playing like it wants to win is the Cards. This team might not have blown away the competition at the trade deadline, but the St. Louis front office did enough to give the them a fighting chance in this exact scenario.  

Veteran starting pitchers Jon Lester and J.A. Happ have been a boon to a Cardinals staff ravaged by injuries. Miles Mikolas and Jack Flaherty have been injured for most of the season, Carlos Martinez is out for the season and Kwang Hyun Kim had a stint on the IL as well. 

Entering Wednesday night's game against the Mets, Lester had a 1.90 ERA over his last four starts. The 37-year-old limited the damage in the 11-4 win over against the Mets and even pulled a double down the right field line in the fourth inning.

Happ has had one bad outing for the Cardinals, but otherwise he's gone 4-3 with a 4.15 ERA in seven starts. Happ and Lester are backed up by one of the best defenses in baseball. 

A sweep of the Mets has the Cards in the driver's seat. They can step on the throats of the Padres in their next series and solidify their lead.

St. Louis could just be feasting on weaker competition. The Cardinals split a four-game series with the Dodgers earlier this month and lost one to the Brewers. They saw a lot of bad teams in August and took advantage but didn't fare well against the two best teams they faced (swept by the Atlanta Braves, lost 2-1 to Milwaukee). 

San Diego Padres (75-70) 1.0 Games Back, Playoff Chances: 28.2%

The Padres had lost five straight against the Dodgers and Giants and been outscored 23-2 in the previous three leading up to Wednesday's 9-6 victory over the Giants. They still have one more series against San Francisco, one against the Los Angeles and series with St. Louis and Atlanta, so it's an uphill battle with the schedule. 

The problem with the Padres has been inconsistent pitching. Blake Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner, went 4-3 with a 3.24 ERA in 11 first-half starts. Since then he's gone 3-3 with a 4.99 ERA. He's on the injured list, along with Chris Paddack. But even Paddack has been inconsistent when healthy. 

The Padres took a big swing at the trade deadline and missed, with the Dodgers getting ace Max Scherzer from the Nationals. And now the Padres are trying to gain ground with 35-year-old Jake Arrieta and his 7.05 ERA (8.25 ERA since he was claimed on waivers by San Diego). 

     

Cincinnati Reds (75-71) 1.5 Games Back, Playoff Chances: 22.5%

The Reds have been hanging around the wild-card standings all season, but the streaks and slumps have done them no favors. They've gone 3-7 over their last 10 games and lost their last four straight after a 5-4 defeat to Pittsburgh Wednesday. 

The bullpen has been a disaster all season. Cincinnati has the third-worst relief ERA in baseball (5.10). This stat should tell you all you need to know about the team's downfall this season. 

Today the Reds became the first team in MLB history to lose despite hitting 6+ home runs and having its starting pitcher allow 2 runs or fewer.

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) April 22, 2021

Despite the pitching, they do have one of the hottest hitters in baseball in outfielder Nick Castellanos (.313/.367/.574 with a .941 OPS). Second baseman Jonathan India should be in the conversation for NL Rookie of the Year (.842 OPS leads all qualified rookies). The Reds have the building blocks moving forward, but they'll need to make some serious upgrades to the bullpen in the offseason in order to go from also-ran to a World Series contender. 

As for this season, they still have a chance, albeit a slim one. The schedule works in Cincinnati's favor, with 11 games against the cellar-dwelling Pirates and Washington Nationals. The five games against the Dodgers and Chicago White Sox could hold the Reds back.      

Philadelphia Phillies (73-72), 3.0 Games Back, Playoff Chances: 19.7%

The Phillies have arguably the best catcher in baseball (JT Realmuto) and one of the best overall players (Bryce Harper) playing for a World Series-winning manager (Joe Girardi). 

So what's the problem?

Similar to Cincinnati, the bullpen has hamstrung the club for the last few years. There were improvements made at the trade deadline, like bringing in Ian Kennedy from the Texas Rangers. Starter Kyle Gibson came from the Rangers as well, but he's been roughed up in his last three starts. 

The problems go beyond the pitching corps, however. The Phillies were so bad in the 6-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs Tuesday that the longtime radio voice, Larry Andersen, ripped the entire team, including Harper for bad baserunning and Girardi for his decision-making. 

The numbers don't add up for Philadelphia. The Phillies would need to go 9-7 over the final 17 games to finish with a winning record. The good news is the schedule: Atlanta is the only winning team left on the Phillies' slate.        

New York Mets (72-75), 5.0 Games Back, Playoff Chances: 2.2%

I've watched a lot of Mets games this year, and there are some nights where you don't know what their identity is. At times, they've looked like the most fun team in baseball and others they've looked like the most dysfunctional. But then again, the Mets have always put the "fun" in "dysfunctional," so it shouldn't be a surprise. 

The Mets were a .500 team through June and July and went 9-19 in August. Over the weekend, they took two from the Yankees in the Subway Series before losing three straight against the Cardinals. 

Jacob deGrom has been out for much of the second half of the season, and the front office did little to fortify the pitching staff at the trade deadline. The front office has been a disaster since before the season even started.

Sandy Alderson now has the roles of team president, president of baseball operations and general manager since the club fired Jared Porter prior to the start of the season and placed acting general manager Zack Scott on administrative leave. Porter admitted to sexually harassing a foreign reporter and Scott was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence last month.

It's been a chaotic beginning to new owner Steve Cohen's tenure. 

The hitting has been problematic all season, and starter Taijuan Walker has looked like a different pitcher in the second half. This team won't have it easy over the next few weeks with series against Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee, Miami and Atlanta. 

      

My prediction

The Cardinals have a clear path to wild-card spot No. 2. The NL East is bad, so is the Reds' bullpen, and the Padres are in free fall. Good luck to the Cardinals when facing Scherzer and/or Clayton Kershaw at Dodger Stadium in a winner-take-all game next month. They'll need it.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are heading into the postseason for the ninth straight season.

With a win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday combined with losses by the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds, the Dodgers have clinched at least a berth in the 2021 MLB playoffs.

The first step to #RepeatLA. pic.twitter.com/bIMyAIBnXM

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 15, 2021

"We did a little champagne toast, said a few words and acknowledged the fact that it's a big accomplishment," L.A. manager Dave Roberts told reporters. "We got a lot of work to do and this is just the beginning."

The squad now must focus on battling the San Francisco Giants for an NL West title. The Giants hold a 2.5-game lead for first place.

Los Angeles has controlled its division for nearly a decade, finishing in first place in each of the past eight seasons. After years of disappointing playoff finishes, the squad finally came through last year with a World Series title, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in six games in the Fall Classic.

The Dodgers are now looking to become the first team to go back-to-back since the New York Yankees in 2000.

The talent is there for a deep run if the team can stay healthy.

Max Muncy, Justin Turner, Mookie Betts and Corey Seager lead a deep lineup that ranks first in the National League in runs scored. The offense got even deeper during the season with the additions of Trea Turner and Albert Pujols, giving Roberts an embarrassment of riches when filling out his lineup card.

Even if a few players struggle in the playoffs, there are enough high-quality options to keep the offense producing.

The bullpen, led by Kenley Jansen, Blake Treinen and Phil Bickford, is another of the team's strengths.

Adding Max Scherzer at the deadline also gave the Dodgers an ace to a staff that already included Walker Buehler and Julio Urias. If Clayton Kershaw can return to the mound, this team can be even more dangerous.

Regardless of whether Los Angeles wins the division or ends up with a wild-card bid, this is an elite team without many weaknesses. The latest accomplishment could just be one more stepping stone toward another title.