With four games left in the regular season, it is still impossible to predict where the Phillies are going to play in the opening round of the postseason next week.
Yes, this is assuming the Phils don’t blow a 3-game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks with four to play, but I’m willing to take that risk.
Things got even murkier on Wednesday night.
- The Phillies fell 4-1 to the Milwaukee Brewers after going 0-12 with runners in scoring position.
- The Miami Marlins edged the Cubs 3-2, their second win over Chicago in as many nights.
- The San Diego Padres handled the Dodgers in L.A., 5-1.
Suddenly, the Padres now sit atop the wild card standings at 88-70, holding a one-game lead on the Cubs and Phillies, both of whom are 87-71.
San Diego is
going to enter the playoffs as the hottest team in baseball, 15-5 in September, and 32-16 since the start of August, the best mark in baseball (the Phillies are 30-18, by the way, 4th-best). If the season ended today, the Padres would host the Cubs in the wild card round, with the Phillies heading to Atlanta.
However, the Padres would need to finish with the best record, as they would lose the tie-breaker to both the Cubs and the Phillies. They went 1-5 against Chicago and 0-6 against Philadelphia. The Cubs went 6-1 against the Phils and hold that tie-breaker.
The ideal scenario for the Phillies would be for them to finish as the top wild card team and the No. 4 seed, with the Padres slotting in as the 5-seed and Chicago landing at 6. In that situation, the Phils would welcome the Padres to Citizens Bank Park, and that is a realistic scenario given what’s coming this weekend.
On Thursday, the Phils will wrap up their series against the Brewers, who will be throwing a bullpen game as they ready themselves for the postseason. The Padres finish their series against the Dodgers and the Cubs play one more against the feisty Marlins.
This weekend, the Cubs could be in real trouble. With nasty weather anticipated up in Boston, MLB is scheduling a day-night doubleheader between Chicago and the Red Sox on Friday and a single game on Saturday, understanding that one, or multiple, of those games might have to be made up. That kind of disruption could be difficult for the Cubs, even going up against a Red Sox team that is locked in as the AL’s second wild card.
The Padres, meanwhile, are hosting a Diamondbacks team that may or may not still have an outside shot at a playoff berth. San Diego should be able to handle Arizona at home, and may have the clearest path to the NL’s top wild card spot now.
As for the Phils, it remains to be seen how the Rays are going to play things this weekend at Citizens Bank Park. They have the American League’s No. 1 seed locked up, so these games are meaningless to them. They are unlikely to pitch their top starters for more than a couple innings, and their regulars will likely get some rest. That said, Tampa is still a very good, and deep, team, capable of handling the Phils even with some of their regulars out of the lineup.
There is a realistic path to the Phillies earning the top wild card spot and hosting either the Cubs or the Padres. There’s just as likely a chance they’ll finish as the second wild card and travel to Chicago or San Diego for the best-of-three series, and also as likely a chance they are the NL’s final wild card and head to Atlanta for a series against the Braves.
Obviously, a first round match-up with the Padres would be the ideal scenario. The Phillies have owned them over the last few years. A trip to Wrigley would, for the sake of spectacle, be terrific. Despite both teams having existed for more than 100 years, the Phils and Cubs have never squared off in the postseason.
A trip to Atlanta would be ick.
There’s an argument to be made that starting the playoffs on the road, as an underdog and away from the crushing expectations of the fanbase, might be the best thing for this group. They could sell themselves as the upstarts, the same way they did in 2022 against the Cardinals in St. Louis, rather than “the favorite,” expected to win.
Fans should continue to hope for a home wild card series, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they started the postseason away from home.
On the latest Hittin’ Season podcast, I discussed all the scenarios with Mike Robertson of FranzkeLA, so make sure to check it out!
