What about the makeup game?

This started as a reply in the comments section to Colin speculating about the lineup Bobby would play against the Giants in a possible makeup game the day after the regular season. (The Braves and Giants played to a tie in their last meeting in Atlanta; the game was called for rain in the tenth inning after the Braves tied it in the bottom of the ninth.) I decided it warranted its own entry.

The lineup I came up with was:

CF Bo Porter
RF Darren Bragg
1B Julio Franco
3B Wes Helms (if he's healthy)
2B Marcus Giles
LF Mark DeRosa
SS Jesse Garcia
C Steve Torrealba
SP Trey Hodges

It's not the most impressive group, God knows. But every one of them except Porter has been a starter at some stage this year. None of them would be a starter in postseason except Julio and Marcus/Mark as RH platoon players.

What if the Giants won/lost that game, which moved them into a tie for the wildcard. They'd have to play another game, on the other side of the country, on Tuesday! And if they won that, they'd have to fly all the way back across the country to play the Braves again!

Actually, come to think of it, the Braves would have a pretty large stake in that game. If the Giants were a half game ahead, we'd certainly want to win and send them back to play the Dodgers. And if they're a half game back... we'd kinda want to lose. I mean, it wouldn't matter to us. But the NL Wildcard will almost certainly be either the Giants or Dodgers, and neither team would play the Diamondbacks in the first round. So the Braves (barring a total collapse that pushed them behind the Cardinals) will play the wildcard team in the first round. Making them play for their playoff lives twice, on opposite coasts, in 48 hours would seemingly take a lot out of them.

It probably won't happen. But they're tied right now.