Thanks to the opposite results for San Francisco and San Diego on Thursday, the three-way tie between the Braves, Giants and Padres is still possible. Here’s what needs to happen in the last three days of the season:

• San Diego Padres 3-0
• Atlanta Braves 1-2
• San Francisco Giants 0-3

The odds are better than I thought last night, as I had this idea in my head that the Giants and Braves would have the same record, but that would only be true if the Giants lost.

I’m trying to use a more exact model for the probabilities for the last three games. I base it on the Pythagorean winning percentage, meaning the Braves are actually better than the Phillies. Using that percentage as the intrinsic winning percentage for the team and the log5 method to compute the winning percentage against an opponent, the Padres have a probability of .476 of defeating the Giants in a single game. For the sweep, we cube that to .10785.

For the Phillies, they have a probability of a win against the Braves of .474. Taking two out of three from the Braves would be .474*.474*(1-.474), .11818. Since there are three ways that can happen, however, we multiply that product by three, so the chances of the Phillies taking two out of three from the Braves is .35454.

To get the chance that both happen, we multiply the two probabilities together to get a chance of three-way tie at 0.038237, or about 1 in 26. Click on the graph below for a larger version.

Those are better odds than I thought. For today, the only game that really matters is the Padres Giants game, which the Padres have to win. The Braves can go either way against Philadelphia, although losing would be better, since there is a higher probability of going 1-1 than 0-2. It’s Clayton Richard against Matt Cain tonight, so it should be a good one.