Hello again everyone! So last week I did my first article here on "If the Regular Season Ended Today" but I only focused on the American League, ignoring the National League. I did this since there was so much I had to say and explain to make clear what I was saying. If you're at all confused about anything in here I highly recommend you check out the American League version which should be going up at the same time as this one. Before you do anything check that one out too!. With that said (and I'm assuming you checked out the AL version to get all of the details), let's do this. (Please note that these standings are current as of May 9 at 11:55 AM)

National League East: Atlanta Braves (20-14)

Central: St. Louis Cardinals (20-15) and Milwaukee Brewers (21-16)

West: Arizona Diamondbacks (24-11)

Wild Cards: Saint Louis Cardinals (20-15, +0.0 GB); Colorado Rockies (20-15, +0GB); Milwaukee Brewers (20-15, +0.0 GB)

Tie-Breaker Game:

Another league, another tiebreaker. This time, it's between the two teams from the NL Central that are statistically tied for first, which puts them in a tie for the Wild Card as well. Both teams, the Cards, and Brew-Crew are, for most people, surprises to be here. Many people predicted that the Chicago Cubs, who won almost 100 games in 2015 and then won over 100 in 2016 (not to mention their first world series in 108 years), only to regress in 2017 and now, over a month into the season, be 18-15 and, under our scenario, not even going to the playoffs. The Brewers are, for the most part, overperforming peoples expectations, and the same goes for the Cardinals. These two teams were in the race for the NL Wild Card last year until the last few games, and both of them hoped to improve on promising 2017 campaigns. However, I saw the Cardinals not doing quite as well as they have been and the Brewers doing somewhat better than they have. The Brewers are young and up-and-coming, whereas the Cards are aging and struggling. Despite this, though, here we are. Based on the rules set forth by MLB, this game would be in St. Louis, and based on how the two teams have performed, I think the home crowd would be happy with the result, though it is a tossup. Both teams are extremely similar, with them having nearly identical records and having each won 3 games against the other, but I give the slimmest of edges to the Birds.

Wild Card Game:

Thanks to the Rockies, the NL has a (statistical) tie in the Wild Card right now between the Colorado Rockies and the Milwaukee Brewers, too. Now, the rules for the Wild Card Game says that the team with the better record hosts the game, but they have (virtually) the same record. So, what happens now? Well, then the rules say that if the teams are tied in the standings then you go by who won more games against the other team. This sounds like a safe way to resolve an issue like this, which it is, but unfortunately, it's so early in the regular season that these two teams haven't matched up against each other. Where do we go from there? Next is how well they've done against other teams in their own division, which solidly goes to the Rockies, who are 7-6 against other teams from their division whereas the Brewers are 10-13.

Therefore, the Wild Card Game would be hosted by the Rockies, who I see winning that game. The Brewers are overperforming based on a lot of preseason estimates but I expected them to play as well as they are, or even a little bit better. The Rockies, on the other hand, are playing well above everyone's expectations. The Rockies usually have a very good offense but never really had good pitching to back that up. Last year, though, their pitching was a massive surprise and the Rockies ended up going to the Wild Card Game against the Diamondbacks, which they lost. However, this year against the Brewers, not to mention on their own home turf, things would go differently and I see the Rockies winning the game quite easily.

NLDS:

Like the American League, the National League has a best-of-5 division series between the division winner with the best record and the winner of the Wild Card Game, as well as between the division winner with the second-best record and the one with the third-best. The one that's between the best and the Wild Card winner would, in our scenario, be an intradivisional matchup between the Diamondbacks and the aforementioned Colorado Rockies, and things don't bode well for the Wild Card Winners.

While the Rockies have gotten off to an impressive start, the Diamondbacks have simply blown all other teams out of the water. Not only is their record of 24-11 the best record in the National League, it's also the 3rd best in all of Major League Baseball, only behind the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees of the American League. For each strength of the Rockies, the Diamondbacks are that much stronger. The Rockies have good sluggers in Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon? The Diamondbacks have even better hitters in Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock. The Rox rotation has been good this year? The D-Backs has been so much better. This series is easy to call as the Diamondbacks are just too overwhelming. Despite the Rox clawing into the playoffs like last year, they fall to the D-Backs for the second year in a row, only this time in 3 games instead of 1.

The other series would be between the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals. Now a quick word about the Braves: they shouldn't be here. The Braves were not considered a good team going into this year. They had some good players on the team but there was too much-untested potential, too many holes that just couldn't bring a team to a .500 record, let alone a playoff appearance. However, several elements conspired in the Braves' favor, as the Washington Nationals, who were expected to once again run away with a very weak division have struggled mightily to start the year and are currently only 1 game over .500 with a record of 18-17. The New York Mets then assumed the role as the kings of the NL East but then faltered behind a shaky lineup and a rotation that has struggled since starting the year hot. The Philadelphia Phillies, at this point, are the only team close enough to the Braves in the standings and good enough to give them a run for their money, but, like the Braves, the Phillies are playing way above where they were expected to be, so the Braves are safe for now.

Their opponents in this series, the Cardinals, are in a similar situation where they're overperforming in a weak division that gave them an opening. Expected to be a .500 team throughout the year, the Cardinals instead are 20-14 with a win percentage of .588, while at the same time the "surprise" Brewers got hot and then cooled off, keeping themselves close and (like right now) tied, the Chicago Cubs (who, like the Nationals, were expected to run away with the division) is cold out of the gate with a 16-15 record, the Pittsburgh Pirates are 3 games over .500 but are expected to lose almost 100 games this year, and the Cincinnati Reds are on pace to lose 125 games this year.

Neither team is too exciting to watch, which actually makes this one of the more entertaining matchups we could have. While things aren't great for either team, things are a little bit better for the Cards than the Braves, so I say this series goes to St. Louis in 6 games.

NLCS:

There's not much to say here that hasn't already been said. The Diamondbacks are absolutely outstanding. The Cardinals are decent. This series is a brief, overwhelming victory for the D-Backs as they roll through a lower-tier team to face off against the Yankees in the World Series, a rematch of the 2001 World Series.

World Series:

Since I didn't talk about the World Series in the AL version, I need to here. The World Series is done just like the Championship Series only it's between the winners of the Championship Series. This series would have the first 2 games played at Chase Field, the home of the D-Backs. Both of these teams are good and I see them trading blows, the Yankees winning Game 1 but Arizona taking Game 2. The next three are at Yankee Stadium, where last year the Yankees played 5 playoff games and won all 5. This year the Yankees are an even better team than last year. They'd take all three games in the Bronx, meaning the World Series is over after 5 games, Yankees win 4-1.

Thank you all for reading. Normally I don't write two articles a week and I don't plan on doing it like this every week but this week, with everything that needed to be explained and everything else behind the scenes going on here, the split was done. I hope that you all continue to come back and enjoy the content we put out to you and before I go I hope you enjoyed these articles and play ball!