Handicapping the pennant race

There is less than three weeks left in the Frontier League's regular season and quite an interesting playoff race is developing.

The two division winners along with two remaining teams with the best records, regardless of division, will qualify for the playoffs. Entering Tuesday's games, Traverse City leads the East Division by four games over Southern Illinois, while Windy City is holding a 1 1/2-game lead over Gateway. Southern Illinois and Gateway are in the wild-card spots, but the Grizzlies have a slim lead over Schaumburg (1 game), Lake Erie (2 games) and Florence (3 games). The Freedom's 1-0 win Sunday at Lake Erie was a huge boost to Florence's playoff chances.

So who has the advantage down the stretch? Who has the most difficult path to the playoffs?

In the East, we like Traverse City with the four-game lead, especially when you factor in that the Beach Bums have only six road games remaining compared to 12 at home, including three against the Road Warriors.

In the West, the schedule favors Schaumburg. The Boomers have 12 home games remaining (they are 27-12 at home), including three against the Road Warriors and play only six games against teams in the playoff race. Gateway has nine home games and nine away, and matches Schaumburg with six games against playoff contenders.

Though Windy City leads the West, the ThunderBolts have the toughest schedule. Windy City has 17 games remaining (one more than every other contender) and only six are at home. The ThunderBolts are the only contender that must play a doubleheader, that being Friday at Washington, and you know what they say about the difficulty of sweeping a twinbill. Windy City also plays 12 of its 19 games against playoff contenders.

As for the wild-card contenders from the East, Florence has the most ground to make up but the Freedom have the easiest schedule, which adds a little spice to the stretch drive. Florence has nine games at home and play only one three-game series (this weekend at home against Southern Illinois) against other playoff contenders.

Southern Illinois plays the most contenders as 12 of its remaining 18 games are head-to-head with teams in the playoff chase. Lake Erie has nine games left against contenders (just three at home), but also gets the Road Warriors for a series.

Washington, by the way, plays 13 games against playoff contenders: Windy City (4), Gateway (3), Florence (3) and Schaumburg (3).