We have crossed the halfway point of the 2025 baseball season and the NL playoff race is beginning to take shape.

Which teams will be buying at the deadline?

Which teams are going to fall out of the race?

I've got Brian Walton on the line to talk about just that here on the Road to Wire Fantasy Baseball podcast.

Music talk about just that here on the Roto Wire Fantasy Baseball podcast.

And welcome, everybody, to the Roto Wire Fantasy Baseball podcast.

Eric Hultzman here today with Brian Walton of Creative Sports and the Cardinal Nation.com and a fellow member of NL. Tout Wars. We might talk about that in a minute. But Brian, how's your fantasy season going?

Judging by your Chout Wars performance, a little bit better than mine? Yeah, perhaps.

I'm in this pitch battle with Rick Graham for third place, which doesn't really mean anything, of course.

Gray, Albert of Rasball has a very nice lead. And by the way, we'll be talking a lot about Taut Wars through this. So make sure you go to the Tout Wars website and you can get a link to look at the stats and where all the teams go. Eric is in seventh right now, but he could, with just a couple of points, move on to the sixth place and on the, sort of the left side of the scoreboard, sort of speaking, this 12th team in a only league.

Yeah, I spent a couple days on that side of the scoreboard. Those were good days, but then I've fallen back down to the bottom half. I think there's still plenty of time to make a charge up to some respectable point in the standings. I will talk about how you and I might think about going

about that in just a few minutes. And later on, we'll be talking about all the NL Wildcard

contenders. How are they remaining in the race? Who's had some good seasons who might need to be upgraded at the

deadline. But as always, we want to start with some of the headlines, which included yesterday,

Clayton Kershaw, reaching 3,000 strikeouts in a not altogether strong performance against

the White Sox, we have to say, just three strikeouts, what four runs allowed in six innings, but he has reached the milestone.

Is that the last one we're going to see ever?

Do you think we might get Chris Sale, Garrett Cole?

What do you think, Brian?

Never say never, Eric.

Never say never.

You know, there are guys who have shown the ability to stay off the

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