First and foremost, I am not a mathematician, nor do I pretend to be one. But what I am is what you might call a realist. And realistically speaking, if the Dodgers do not leave St. Louis on Sunday afternoon with at least a split (or better) against the current National League Wild Card-leading Cardinals, their chances of making the postseason will lie somewhere between the proverbial slim and none.

Again, I am not going to get into all of the mathematical possibilities, I’ll leave that to those who know about such things, as I clearly do not. But what I do know is that with 16 games remaining in the regular season, and unless the Dodgers go on a run of biblical proportions, they will, in all likelihood, be watching the playoffs on TV instead of being in them.

A bit negative and pessimistic, you say? Perhaps. But such is the case when you look at things realistically as opposed to trying to kid yourself to the contrary.

Consider this:

While the Dodgers (who just lost two of three to the NL Central last place Cincinnati Reds) are doing battle with the Cardinals (against whom they are already 0-3 this season) at Busch Stadium, the NL West-leading Colorado Rockies and the NL West third place Arizona Diamondbacks will be doing battle in the fourth of a head-to-head four-game series at Coors Field. And even with a best-case scenario of a Dbacks win on Thursday afternoon, if the Dodgers do not beat the Cardinals on Thursday evening, they will have gained zero ground on the Rox.

While it’s great that the Dodgers beat the NL Central last place Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon, the fact that they lost six of seven to the third worst team in the NL this season is not.
(Photo credit – Ryan Meyer)

But wait, there’s more!

Even if the Dodgers and Dbacks both win on Thursday, the Dodgers would still be a half game behind Colorado, who begin a weekend series against the NL West fourth place San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on Friday. And if history has taught us anything, mathematics notwithstanding, it has taught us the that the Giants were put on this planet for the sole purpose of screwing things up for the Dodgers. And while anything is certainly possible and any team can beat any other team on any given day, the Giants, as of this writing, have lost eleven games in a row.

There is one silver lining to all of this doom and gloom. While the Dodgers and Cardinals are doing battle, and the Rockies are (presumably) pounding The Hated Ones, the (current) third place Dbacks begin a weekend series against the defending World Series Champion Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park.

But here again, unless the Dodgers come out of St. Louis with at least a split and hopefully three of four (or an unlikely sweep), the chances of the Dodgers catching and passing the Rockies – with whom they begin a three-game series at Dodger Stadium on Monday evening – the Division and the Wild Card races may have already been decided.

Optimists (and mathematicians) fire away.