The three National League teams in wild-card position entered play with nine days left in the season locked in a three way tie for various first-round matchup possibilities, the next team in the standings five games back.
Care to handicap that race, Terry Francona?
“No. I probably would refrain from that,” the Cincinnati Redsmanager, who rarely talks about his own team outside the narrow parameters of the day at hand, said before his team's 5-2 loss to the Chicago Cubs Saturday, Sept. 19.
The question got a laugh over that fact before it got even that much of an answer.
What doesn’t make Francona laugh as much is the thought that exactly one year ago he and
bench coach Mike Napoli and the rest of the staff and players were sweating every out, every inning and at least one out-of-town score on the scoreboard every night while playing these same Chicago Cubs.
“The only thing I would say is I’m jealous,” Francona said.
“Me and Nap were talking (Friday) night,” he said. “We were looking at the scoreboard, like, (expletive), man, that feeling of anxiety.
"I kind of miss that.”
Another twinge of jealousy hit Saturday (Sept. 19) when the Cubs beat the Reds to even the three-game series at two games apiece and inch closer to a playoff berth that can be clinched as early as Sunday's series finale at Great American Ball Park.
That would mark a fourth opponent clincher against the Reds in 10 days.
It's a far cry from a year ago this week when the Reds were in the midst of a four-game sweep against the playoff-bound Cubs and on the way to their own tooth-and-nail fight for a playoff berth they secured on the final day of the season. They fell back to their season low-water mark of 11 games under .500 with Saturday's loss.
If there was a glimmer of anything meaningful for the Reds out of another post-elimination, nine-inning exercise against a team that's probably going to be playing next month, it was the work of Nick Lodolo, the talented lefty who was supposed to be one of the biggest reasons for hope this season until spending the first six weeks of the season on the injured list because of a finger blister.
"I'm just glad I'm going to be able to see Lodolo," a longtime rival scout following this series said before the game. "He was never pitching the other times I've seen the Reds this year."
That's the point. That's what made Lodolo's fifth quality start of the season, and second straight start of seven innings, so significant as he tries to finish strong after two long IL stints for the blister.
He allowed three runs on six hits against one of the best lineups in the league, retiring the final five batters he faced after Michael Busch's go-ahead solo home run in the sixth.
Lodolo has one more scheduled start, in the final series of the season, at Toronto.
Maybe the Reds can also find two days of solace in the top non-playoff-related storyline of the series?
Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, the MVP favorite who clobbered the Reds most of the season, is 0-for-10 with four strikeouts in the series so far.
And his MVP-talent counterpart, Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz is 2-for-4 with four walks, and a pair of runs scored in Friday's 6-4 win.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Chicago Cubs beat Cincinnati Reds to inch closer to playoff clinch
