You don't need Windex to see the National League playoff picture has gotten much clearer as we head into the final sprint of the season.
The ongoing collapse of the Diamondbacks coming shortly after the Phillies' flop basically has reduced the field of contenders to a half-dozen with 1 { weeks remaining.
Assuming the Cubs and Braves win their divisions, that leaves the Dodgers and Rockies battling for the National League West title and the Brewers, Cardinals and West runner-up fighting for two wild-card spots. And with the Cubs likely to finish with the league's best record, they will face the winner of the wild-card game in their NL Division Series opener Oct. 4 at Wrigley Field.
It has been an interesting race, and the playoff scenarios still are so complicated it's hard to remember where everyone stands until you click your favorite sports app and glance at the standings.
"It has been this way for a couple of months now," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "Everybody wants to scoreboard watch. It doesn't tell you anything on a daily basis really. There's a bunch of teams involved, and you know winning games is your best tonic every night.
"It's fun in a lot of ways because there are more teams involved and there's more interest and more games are meaningful at this point. But it just feels like there's a big bunch of teams, and trying to figure out what's going to happen next is a little bit useless."
One thing seems certain: Five teams stand in the way of the Cubs heading back to the World Series:
