Over the weekend, I tweeted a pretty harmless statement, I thought. I said that given how good the Cardinals and Pirates are, I would love to see them square off in a National League Championship Series.
Some of the Twitterati, who pay more attention than I, noted that probably cannot happen under the current playoff format.
As it stands, the top three teams in the National League Central all would make the playoffs. Assuming for a moment that the Cardinals win the division, the Cubs and Pirates would meet in the wild-card play-in and the survivor would face the Cardinals in the Division Series, because the division winner with the best record faces the wild card in that round.