The National League wild-card race is a big stupid mess. With Sunday’s games in the books, six teams are within five games of the second spot, with Washington and St. Louis hanging onto postseason positions for dear life. How long they can dig their fingernails into the cliff for the next six-plus weeks depends on whether the group behind them can put together a run. The Mets are the latest of those clubs to get red-hot, but even that blazing stretch has only put them in the thick of the race instead of at the top of the heap.

Is there a favorite, though, in that stew of squads? To find out, let’s dive into each of the eight teams still vying for the two wild-card spots and decide which pair are the better bets to play on into October. The playoff odds below originate from FanGraphs' projection.

56–60, 5 GB of second wild-card

Odds to win wild-card: 5.1%

The Case For: Cincinnati boasts one of the best rotations in the NL with Trevor Bauer, Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray. The numbers suggest that the Reds are better than their record, with a plus-39 run differential that translates to an expected 62–54 mark. Plus, 33 of their remaining 46 games will be against fellow wild-card contenders, so they’ll have plenty of chances to make up ground.

That's a HAT TRICK of home runs for Aristides Aquino!#BornToBaseball pic.twitter.com/9LY1rgBjUI — FOX Sports Ohio (@FOXSportsOH) August 11, 2019

The Case Against: The alternate universe Reds playing up to that run differential would have inspired paeans to the virtues of trying in the offseason (and they still deserve kudos for that). But the Reds of this reality are pretty average, with one full above-.500 month all year. Even the arrival of a time-traveling Babe Ruth disguised as someone named Aristides Aquino hasn’t been enough to get Cincinnati and its weak lineup going. At some point, you are what your record says you are.

The Verdict: Barring Aquino actually being the reincarnation of Barry Bonds, the Reds are likely toast.

59–60, 3 1/2 GB of second wild-card

Odds to win wild-card: 1.4%

The Case For: Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija offer plenty of veteran grit atop the rotation—one that’ll soon add Johnny Cueto. The bullpen, even after shedding pieces at the deadline, is one of the league’s best. And thanks to a revamped lineup featuring unlikely contributors like Alex Dickerson and Mike Yastrzemski, San Francisco’s offense has been upgraded from stable to frisky.

The Case Against: A white-hot July gave way to an August in which the Giants morphed back into their April-through-June selves, with a 4–7 record so far. The rotation behind Bumgarner and Samardzija—a who’s who of who cares—is awful. Buster Posey and Brandons Belt and Crawford are rocking sub-.700 OPS figures in August—a big part of why San Francisco is averaging just three runs per game this month. The mirage that was the Giants as contenders was built on either the super-subs never cooling down or the established stars re-emerging when that happened. The latter looks increasingly unlikely, and the former is a bad bet going forward.

The Verdict: If Farhan Zaidi can find a way to make it 2014 again, I like their chances.

59–59, 3 GB of second wild-card

Odds to win wild-card: 7.7%

The Case For: The Diamondbacks have a solid lineup and a rotation that’s held its own, and while the bullpen isn’t a strength, Arizona is no fluke. If anything, the D-Backs should be better, with a run differential of plus-67 that beats those of the Braves, Red Sox and Nationals (and equals that of a 65–53 team).

At least there's a World Series banner from this century. pic.twitter.com/6RLSGdByIT — Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) August 10, 2019

The Case Against: Arizona’s front office didn’t seem to believe in itself, trading away Zack Greinke at the deadline despite being within three games of a playoff spot. That alone limits the D-Backs’ ceiling going forward. And despite the underlying positive metrics, this is still a .500 squad, and that’s with a lot of unexpected things going right.

The Verdict: The Diamondbacks keep hanging around—they took two of three from both the Nationals and Phillies to start the month—but seem to lack the extra gear necessary to chase down the leaders and are running out of time to find it.

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