FanPost

First half complete

Well, the first "half" (more than half of the games have been played) of the season is complete, and we sit at 40-45, 7.5 games back of 1st place Milwaukee and 4.5 games back of 2nd place Chicago.  Making a push in the second half toward a playoff spot would be much easier if we didn't have two teams to climb, but IMO 7.5 games is doable.  It will require nearly flawless baseball, but it's possible, especially with the potential return of Carpenter and Mulder, hopefully to their peak ability.  My question to you is how many of our remaining 77 games do we need to win to win the division (because I think that ultimately the NL Central winner will probably have fewer wins than the NL Wild Card winner, so our best chance would be to win the Central)?

I think we need to probably go about 52-25 to be pretty safe, although it could be argued that maybe 45-32 could get it done.  We basically need to win 2 out of every 3 from here on out, or basically concentrate on winning every series we can.  We're not too far below .500, but I also don't think 83 wins will win it this year.  Just some thoughts.