Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Eric Chavez greets teammate first baseman Paul Goldschmidt after Goldschmidt hit a two run homer during the first inning against the Miami Marlins. IMAGE: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

In case you’re not an Internet baseball junky like the present author, you may not be aware that a new tool was recently released that allows us to look ahead to the playoffs like never before. FanGraphs recently released a new standings forecast tool that projects the final standings of the season. To do this, the model takes lots of factors into account. For example, it uses a team’s current record, the allotment of playing time to players, the health of players, their projected production and much more to project the final standings. I won’t pretend to be able to explain every aspect of the model because I’m just barely functional at math, but you can read more about it here. Better yet, the standings are updated daily, so you should bookmark them now.

So why would I tell you about this? Well, it currently predicts the Diamondbacks to finish the season with 85 wins and 77 losses. That would be good for second in the division, behind the Giants who are projected to win 87 games and ahead of the Dodgers who, despite their terrible start, are projected to win 82. More importantly, it puts the Diamondbacks in the thick of the wild card race and not far behind the Giants for the division.

Along with the Giants, the Cardinals and the Braves are projected win their respective divisions. That leaves quality teams like the Reds, Pirates, and Nationals to compete with the Diamondbacks for a bid into the postseason. The Reds are projected to finish with 87 wins while the Pirates are currently projected for 86 wins. Both the Nationals and Diamondbacks are projected to win 85. Essentially, Arizona will have to outperform the two of these three teams (CIN, PIT, WAS) at the very least to reach the playoffs if Arizona doesn’t win the NL West outright.

If the team can win two extra games and reach 87 wins, they’ll likely make the playoffs and be in better position to capitalize on any slip by the Giants. These two extra victories, or “marginal wins,” are the most critical wins to the team’s season. Our playoff destiny likely hangs in the balance of the team being able to achieve a measly two more wins than their current projection.

Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers. IMAGE: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

This is where Kevin Towers, Kirk Gibson and the rest of the brain trust earns their cash. These two extra wins likely don’t reside on the current roster. Stabilizing the bullpen with the right acquisition(s) could net an extra win or two alone. A right-handed bench bat and the proper usage of the outfield when Adam Eaton returns could also make a (relatively) large difference. Of course, staying healthy will be critical, too. We should assume that the Reds, Pirates and Nationals will likely try to make similar moves in the trade market to ensure their success, so we’ll be competing with them in the trade market as well as in the standings.

Maximizing the current roster should be the number one priority, closely followed by shoring up any weaknesses through trades and/or call-ups. Standing pat likely won’t get it done unless some players significantly overachieve. Didi won’t hit .350 forever and Corbin won’t keep his ERA at 1.50 all season. Conversely, Montero will start to click eventually and McCarthy has nowhere to go but up. Regression will happen in Arizona, as it does all throughout baseball. With that said, the front office shouldn’t bank on small sample size performances when making decisions about what to do to improve the team down the line. KT and Company are smart enough to know this.

Now that we know where we stand over 25% of the way through the season, it’s important that the team makes the necessary adjustments to pick up an extra win or two. Hit 87 wins and you’re likely in. Finish with 83 and you’re likely out. 84 or 85 and anything can happen.  This is a quality team, but a little extra nudge from the front office and coaching staff will be required if we want to see the playoffs. They know this and I don’t think the 2013 Arizona Diamondbacks are a finished product at the moment.

Arizona took advantage or some mental and physical errors by San Francisco in the 11th to win the game. Andres Torres just didn’t want to get rid of the ball after Didi Gregorius singled, so Didi took 2nd. Also, Pablo Sandoval came up about 70 feet short on a routine throw to first the Brandon Belt could not handle. Not to mention, Belt had somewhat of a base running error in the 11th as well. I love that Arizona was able to make a team pay for mistakes because lately, we haven’t been.

Pat Corbin was very special tonight in San Francisco.

I’m going to go all the way in saying that Patrick Corbin was great, no, spectacular this evening in San Francisco. His outing looked almost effortless, and aside from a ball that a fan stupidly interfered with, nothing was really hit that hard. Actually, Crawford’s triple was rocked, but still. The CSN Bay Area broadcasters, who are the most pro-Giant announcers I’ve ever heard even referred to Corbin as “magnificient.” Corbin may have been left in the game an inning too long, but with such a low pitch count, there was really no need to pull him. Pats’ final line was 7 1/3 innings, 6 hits, 2 runs and 7 K’s. Like I said, other than a somewhat shaky 8th, Corbin was awesome. It’s outings like this that reinforce the decision to make him the 5th starter in the rotation for the Arizona Diamondbacks. This was a really tough luck “no decision” for Patrick Corbin.

Offensively, Arizona did pretty well in this game. Runs are usually pretty scarce at AT&T Park but Paul Goldschmidt made it look small when he hit a ball that clunked off Alcatraz in the 3rd inning. For most of the game, the Giants fell victim to their own trap that is AT&T Park. The keyword being “most” of the game. It took eight innings for San Fran to get cooking but sure enough, they did. It just wasn’t enough. Arizona did a lot of things right in this game and that’s something to build off as they wrap up the series tomorrow before heading home to face Colorado.

Ian Kennedy will go tomorrow against Madison Bumgarner in the rubber match. Let’s be honest, Arizona should be looking for the sweep but Monday was painful finish.

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Last season for example, everybody thought that Boston would be great and Baltimore would be terrible – in reality, it was the complete opposite and skewed the so-called pre-season strength of schedule.

That being said, looking at the Diamondbacks’ 2013 schedule, the powers-that-be seemed to do no favors for the Snakes.

The D’backs face the entire NL East – a division notoriously difficult and only seems to be even more so in 2013 – and then the Rangers in interleague play.

Those six teams combined to average 85.5 games in 2012, equivalent to a .528 winning percentage. Those numbers are slightly dragged down by Toronto’s 73 wins and Boston’s 69 wins, who both should be improved in 2013 – especially Toronto with all of their big additions this offseason.

So, if the AL East is once again the best division in baseball, by a pretty wide margin, the D’backs will face at least four really good squads there. In addition, Texas is a possibility to falter with the off-season attrition in their roster, but it’s not a good bet, either.

Regardless, its a tough road to plow in 2013 in interleague play and those 20 difficult games, in which the D’backs would be happy going .500, could be the difference between a wild card spot and out of the playoffs.

Just something fun to look at with no real meaning towards what might happen in 2013 is the fact that the D’backs and Blue Jays have only played nine times before. The D’backs have a slight edge with five wins and four losses. In addition, the Diamondbacks best statistical record against any team is their 9-3 mark against the Orioles. That’s where the success in the NL East stops though as the D-backs are 5-7 verse the Sox, 4-8 against the Rays and a putrid 3-9 in contests with the Yanks.

And their 8-17 against the Rangers isn’t very good, either. A full list of the D’backs all-time records against the 29 other teams can be found here.

The biggest stretch of the D’backs schedule as it looks right now, is the final month of the season. The Snakes play 14 of their last 30 games against the Dodgers and Giants – seven games against each club – presumably, the two teams the D’backs will have to surpass to win the NL West. Series against the Blue Jays, Rockies, Padres and Nationals make up the remaining 16 contests in September.

Venom Strikes’ Thomas Lynch takes a broader look at the schedule here, in which he highlights some of the quirks in the D’backs schedule because of the interleague play.