The Cubs have 24 games remaining in the 2025 regular season.

It’s not jinxing things to say they are almost certainly going to be a postseason team. Their magic number to clinch a postseason berth — ANY postseason berth — is 16. That’s the combined number of Cubs wins and Reds losses that would keep the Cubs, at worst, in a wild-card spot.

Thus the Cubs could clinch a wild-card spot by going 16-8 in the 24 remaining games regardless of what the Reds do. That’s not impossible given that 17 of the 24 games are against teams currently under .500. If there’s any time for the Cubs to make a run, now is that time.

To clinch the top wild-card spot and thus have a wild-card series at Wrigley Field, likely against the Padres, the magic number is 22. For that, the Cubs would likely need help — pe

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