Red October is finally here and the Phillies look as good as ever and feel as confident as ever. The 2025 Phillies are as all-in as a team can be in the modern era. In the last 10 months, Dave Dombrowski has traded top prospects for Jesús Luzardo and Jhoan Duran, then made a rental swing for Harrison Bader to solidify the outfield. The payroll is high, the team is full of proven veterans, and everyone is battle-tested. Will any of it matter? We’ll see.
To get everyone prepared over the next week,
here are five points about this matchup that could help decide the series.
Most important number in this series for the Phillies: 10
The most important number in this series for the Phillies is 10. If they get at least 10 combined innings between Ranger Suárez and Jesús Luzardo in games two and three of the NLDS, it’s hard to imagine many scenarios where they lose.
That implies that in at least one of those games, the Phillies started and faced the Dodgers lineup twice and kept them in the game. It allows Rob Thomson to navigate the bullpen without forcing unwanted levers.
If Thomson is forced to provide a quicker hook, that could mean asking Walker Buehler or Taijuan Walker to help in the middle innings or it’s more likely Orion Kerkering is forced to face left handed hitters. Tanner Banks to face right handed hitters.
Instead, the Phillies need to shorten these games. The fewer pitchers used before handing the ball to Matt Strahm and Jhoan Duran, the better their chances are of winning this series.
Can Suárez and Luzardo stay in the game long enough against this Dodgers lineup? It’s hard to tell.
Both pitchers have dealt with issues facing the order a second time. Suárez specifically becomes a completely different pitcher when hitters see him twice, going from a .267 on-base percentage (OBP) and .571 OPS allowed the first time through the order to a .330 OBP and .770 OPS allowed.
Luzardo is a weird case because runners get on base at a higher clip, .296 OBP allowed the first time and .330 the second. However, he allows significantly less slug. Maybe he’s the more likely option to bet on?
Before anyone rushes to mention Suárez’s postseason success, there are some caveats. While his ERA is 1.43 in the postseason, he has not finished five innings in four of his eight postseason starts. They can’t afford those repeats this time around.
Dodgers emphasis on count leverage
When behind in the count, the Dodgers use fastballs at the ninth-highest usage in major league baseball. When ahead in the count, that drops all the way down to 28th. They are big believers in getting to two strikes with fastballs before trying to use different off-speed and breaking pitches to put hitters away.
That strategy might cause a lot of problems against the Phillies. Since the start of August, the Phillies are hitting .285 against fastballs, third best in baseball and are slugging .510 on them, second best only to the Yankees.
Instead, the Dodgers would be more inclined to use more splitters. Only two other teams have utilized the splitter more than the Dodgers have and it’s become a Phillies weakness over the last two months. The Phillies are hitting just .188 on splitters with a .266 slug and a 39.2% whiff rate.
The Dodgers obviously have a few different pitchers who can throw plenty of them. Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the rotation, along with Roki Sasaki in the bullpen.
Teoscar Hernández vs Alec Bohm
With Will Smith being a big question mark for this series, the Dodgers have had Teoscar Hernández as their cleanup hitter despite his disappointing season. He’s mostly been a league-average hitter this year with a significant decline in his power numbers from 2024.
However, he swung the bat great against the Reds and had a six-game hitting streak before that series. Hernández swinging a hot stick just makes pitching to Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman that much harder.
The Phillies have their own cleanup hitter who has disappointed for most of the season. Alec Bohm regressed from an all-star in 2024 to a mostly league-average hitter in 2025 but has been hot since coming off the injured list. Since September 19, Bohm has a hit in all nine games he’s played with two home runs and three doubles.
Bohm has a .629 OPS in the postseason over the last three years. He has been a controversial player to the fan base and was essentially being shopped around in the off-season. But he’s stayed the course and now has a chance to right a lot of previous wrongs and has been hot lately.
The Phillies are still free swingers for better or worse.
Since the start of August, the Phillies’ O-swing percentage is at 31.5%, third highest in baseball behind the Colorado Rockies and Houston Astros. Prior to that, they sat at 29.8%.
That doesn’t tell the entire story, of course. They became a top-five offense in baseball for the final two months of the year because they hit a lot more home runs and doubles. They chased more but had a purpose to it.
It is also still the same strengths and weaknesses they’ve had the prior two Octobers. Maybe someone like Max Kepler is just enough to balance out some of the free swingers, or maybe Harrison Bader is just that much of an upgrade in center field over Johan Rojas at the plate. It’s possible this narrative never mattered.
It’s also possible they struggle against someone like Blake Snell, who’s excellent at getting hitters to chase and will make two starts in this series if it goes the distance.
Roki Sasaki might’ve fixed a lot of the Dodgers bullpen
The Dodgers bullpen had an ERA of 4.27 in the regular season and blew 25 saves. The only addition they made at the trade deadline was adding Brock Stewart, who’s on the injured list with shoulder inflammation.
But there is a chance they have one spot covered with Roki Sasaki. It’s only been three outings but he looks like a completely different pitcher out of the bullpen.
His fastball velocity averaged 96.1 mph for the season but here is what he’s throwing out of the bullpen:
9/24 vs ARI: 99.2 mph
9/26 vs SEA: 99.1 mph
10/1 vs CIN: 100.6 mph
He has never pitched on back-to-back days, but that only comes into play for games three and four. Even if he’s not available for one of them, he is still theoretically available for the other four.
It’s a lot to buy into but in those three one-inning outings, Sasaki has six strikeouts, one hit allowed, and no walks. He might be the hot-hand reliever a championship team finds in October. Maybe he isn’t.
