75 Down Means 15 To Go (And 23 To Avoid)

At the beginning of this year, I looked at the NL West and said to myself that 90 wins would probably be enough to take this thing. I based that on the way I expected the teams in the division to beat each other up.

With the Padres having achieved win number 75 last night, they are in awful good shape to hit that number. The 5-0 victory over Arizona last night puts San Diego at 75 - 49, the best record in the National League. Most fans tend to look at that one of two ways... they look at the number of wins (Atlanta is second with 73) or they look at winning percentage (again the Braves are in second with .579 to the Friars .605.)

Neither of those is a bad way to look at things, especially with the luxury of doing it while glancing over your shoulder from the lead. But if I might offer an alternative option...

Lets look at the division. That 75-49 puts us in front by 5.5 games over San Francisco's 71-56 record. The first question a casual fan has looking at that is, "Why 5.5? Shouldn't it be 4? 75-71 equals 4." Win percentage doesn't help explain that, except tangentially because they are both measuring the same stat.

The real answer, and an extra reason to be confident about the Padre's postseason chances at this point, is in the column people forget about. The one with an L at the top.

The Padres have 49 losses. Now the thing about L's is they are missed opportunities. You can't get them back. We could, if we accept the 90 win theory above, perhaps look at them as coffin nails. With 162 games, in order to win 90 you can only lose 72. That's how many nails the undertaker is using on your pine box. That is 18 games above .500, certainly a good record in baseball. (Not so much in other sports, BTW. Think a 9-7 record in the NFL, for example. Very easy to be on the outside of the playoffs looking in with a 9-7... and that is in a sport that qualifies a higher percentage of teams for the postseason.)

So, the Pads have 49 nails in their coffin. It takes 72 to shut the lid. The Giants? 56 nails down. The Braves? 53. Indeed, the best thing about the Padres right now is that they lead the league, not in most wins, but in fewest losses. That means more opportunities to do things right and fewer examples of things gone wrong.

San Francisco has played 127 games, the Padres 124. If you apply the three games the Padres have "in hand" and split those by the two possibilities (W vs. L) -- it's 1.5. Add those to the number of wins the Padres are ahead. Now you have that 5.5.

So, like everything else about this game, winning a postseason berth isn't about maximizing your success so much as minimizing your disappointments. When we start talking magic numbers soon, the column of primary importance is the loss column. And in the loss column, the Padres look even better than the do in the other, gaudier column next to it. The only teams with a better record on the right side are the Yanks and Rays, both with 48.

By the way, just so I don't sound like I'm overly pleased by my prognosticating on the ninety win thing? I only expected the Padres to get about 85. Yes, I'm a fan, an optimist and I usually have more confidence in my boys than the national media do. But I have to say, I didn't expect to win the division this year. I picked the Giants. I also thought the Dodgers and Rockies would be closer.

If the Padres finish the year the way they've performed so far, they will win 23 more games. Or rather, they would lose only 16. That would give them a cushion of seven nails, and mean they were two short of triple digits in victories. Those 98 wins would match the 1998 NL Champs. If they play just .500 ball, they win 19 more, and lose 20. Nails in the coffin? 69.

Yeah, I'm getting pretty confident about October baseball now.