Slumping Since All-Star Break, Marlins, D'backs, Giants and Reds Keeping Each Other in Playoff Race

The race for final wild card in the National League is shaping up to be a tight one.

What it hasn't been at least lately is particularly good baseball.

At the end of Sunday's games, Arizona, Miami and San Francisco were tied for that last postseason spot at 70-67. Cincinnati was percentage points behind at 71-68. None of those four teams, however, has a positive run differential. And none of them has a winning record since the All-Star break.

In fact, that quartet has gone 77-109 since the break. Because none of those teams has played particularly well, none of them have fallen out of contention. The Marlins are 17-28 since the All-Star game, even after completing a four-game sweep of Washington this past weekend. Arizona endured a 7-25 stretch from July 2 through Aug. 11 before righting the ship a bit.

The Giants have lost 16 of their last 24 games and the Reds have dropped 19 of 31.

The result of all this mediocrity is that Philadelphia (75-61) is now in solid shape as the NL's top wild card. The Chicago Cubs, who were 6 1/2 games out of a playoff spot at the break, have made up all that ground and more. They're 2 1/2 games behind the Phillies in the second wild card.