Little Mystery For NL Playoff Qualification At This Point

Of course things can change very easily during the course of a baseball season. However, it really looks as though two of the three National League divisional races are over and that we probably know all five NL baseball tournament participants at this relatively early point in the season.

Surely, the Atlanta Braves with a 14  game lead will win the NL East. Barring a monumental change, it will be the Braves’ first divisional title since 2005. That year Atlanta grabbed the last of their 14 straight divisional titles, the first three being far more impressive, “one quarter” and not “one eighth” titles.

It is very likely the Los Angeles Dodgers will win the NL West. If  and almost certainly when they do it will be just their 5th division title since 1988, when they last won the NL Pennant and for that matter, the World Series.

Three teams from the NL Central will likely comprise the other three teams in the National League side of the baseball tournament.

In any order those teams are the St.Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds. At the moment the Arizona Diamondbacks, the closest of those teams “on the outside looking in” are 7 games behind for playoff qualification.