Would you take a guaranteed spot in the NL Wild Card Game right now or roll the dice and hope for a Central Division title? Made your decision? Well, think about this: in the current National League standings, that one-game wild card would pit the Cardinals against the Washington Nationals.

And the Nationals have a pretty option to pitch in a winner-take-all game: 7-time All-Star and 3-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer.

There’s still a long way to go in the season – 60-plus games, in fact. The Nationals could fall off, the Cardinals could take off; but the bar in St. Louis needs to be high. Not just division titles but a World Series win. So the correct answer is – you go for the division win.

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