Playoff Percentages: NL Central gets cloudy, Twins inch closer

Through the remainder of the regular season, we'll take a look at how the night's action impacts the playoff races, highlighting which teams' postseason odds went up or down significantly.

We have ourselves a good old fashioned pennant race in the National League Central.

All three Central teams battling for the division title won Tuesday, meaning the playoff odds for each team increased, thus muddying an already cloudy picture. The Chicago Cubs were lifted to a win by Jose Quintana's seven solid innings; the Milwaukee Brewers rode a dominant bullpen performance to victory over Pittsburgh; and the St. Louis Cardinals thrashed the lowly Reds to keep pace themselves.

Over in the Junior Circuit, the Minnesota Twins - baseball's worst team one year ago - are looking pretty good in their attempt to go worst-to-wild card. After thumping the Padres 13-0, Minnesota's odds of reaching October jumped by over 13 percent. As for the Los Angeles Angels, who made several high-profile acquisitions on Aug. 31 to try to push Mike Trout into the playoffs, it was another player dealt on that day - Justin Verlander - who dealt a blow to their attempt to crash the party with eight shutout innings, dropping the Halos' odds significantly.