Three games. Two days. One 2 p.m. first pitch on a Tuesday, because Major League Baseball looked at this city and decided we could use a little more chaos in our lives.
The Phillies open the NL Wild Card Series at Truist Park on Tuesday against the Braves. Best-of-three. All three games in Atlanta. Winner gets the Dodgers on Saturday. Loser gets to think about it until February.
We've been here before. That's the whole point.
The Setup
Let's get the ugly part out of the way, because you're going to hear it on every broadcast anyway.
The Braves won the NL East. Again. Seventh time in nine years. They finished 94-68, they're the 3 seed, and they beat us 9 of 13 times this season — including that 1-5 April when this team was 9-19 and the entire city was drafting the "fire everyone" tweet. We went 3-4 against them in September, which counts as progress in the same way that a hangover is progress over being drunk.
The Phillies are 88-74, the 6 seed, and they got here the hard way: four straight losses, three runs and a .163 average across those four games while Milwaukee celebrated on our field, and then Wheeler went six innings of one-run ball in Game 162 against the Rays and the offense remembered it had a pulse. 7-3. Champagne. Fifth straight October.
So on paper: division champ with home field vs. a wild card that backed into the last week hitting .163.
Now here's the other paper.
The Part Atlanta Doesn't Want You to Read
The Phillies have never lost a postseason series to the Braves. Ever.
1993 NLCS. 2022 NLDS. 2023 NLDS. Three series, three Phillies wins, 10-4 in the games. Two of those came against Atlanta teams that won 100-plus games and were told all September that they were the best team in baseball. Both times they went home in four.
Regular season records are for the regular season. Atlanta knows this. Atlanta has nightmares about this. Somewhere in Cobb County right now, a grown man in a Riley jersey just felt a chill and doesn't know why.
The Pitching, Which Is the Whole Thing
Game 1 (Tue, 2 p.m., NBC/Peacock): Chris Sale vs. TBD
Sale is the problem. 14-9, 2.16 ERA, third-best in the majors, and he's been even better against us: 2.08 ERA and a 0.81 WHIP in four starts this year. He's on extra rest. He's the 2024 Cy Young. He's a 6-foot-6 left-handed windmill who throws from somewhere behind first base, and this lineup went 21-26 against lefty starters with a .680 OPS.
And yet. Chris Sale's career postseason ERA is 7.24. Seven starts. Seven-point-two-four. Derek Hill cleared the bases off him with a double the last time we saw him. October does weird things to people, and it has historically done very weird things to Chris Sale.
Who's on the mound for us is a real-time soap opera. Mattingly hasn't said. It's Andrew Painter, coming off the six-inning gem that finally matched the scouting reports — or it's Jesús Luzardo, who got activated Sunday after three weeks of shoulder inflammation and threw exactly four pitches to get three outs. Luzardo's line against Atlanta this year is stupid: 1.01 ERA in four starts, opponents hitting .185, and his last full start against them was a two-hit, 12-strikeout shutout. If he's right, he starts. If he's not, Painter gets the biggest start of his life at 23.
Game 2 (Wed, 2 p.m.): Tyler Mahle vs. Cristopher Sánchez
This is why they held Sánchez back. Mahle has a 2.28 ERA in four starts against us, which is annoying, but Sánchez has been the best pitcher in this rotation all year and the changeup is still a felony. If it's 1-1 after Tuesday, Wednesday is a coin flip we like.
Game 3 (Thu, if necessary): Aaron Nola, most likely — Wheeler threw six on Sunday and is out until the NLDS. Nola started on two days' rest Saturday and it went how you'd expect, so a full-rest Nola in a winner-take-all is a completely different animal. We've seen that animal. It's a good animal.
The Three Numbers That Actually Decide This
1. Atlanta's first six innings. The Braves hit .242/.296/.383 through the sixth this season — an 86 wRC+, second-worst in baseball. Then they turn into a 107 wRC+ team from the seventh on. Translation: get the lead early, then pray the bullpen holds. Jhoan Duran is healthy. Alvarado has been an adventure. Mattingly says no set roles, just "our best guys." We'd like to formally request that this be true.
2. Ronald Acuña Jr. He put up a 1.377 OPS in seven September games against us. He's the one guy in that lineup who can end a best-of-three by himself, and the Phillies pitched to him like he was a normal person all month. Stop doing that.
3. Our defense vs. our legs. The Braves are a top-five defense (22 OAA, 63 DRS). The Phillies are... not (-14 OAA, -43 DRS). Harper's back at first, Bohm's at third, Stott's at second, and Arraez and his sprained ankle are a "we'll see." But the Phillies were third in baseball in baserunning runs (+9) and the Braves were negative (-4). This is a series that gets decided on a ball in the gap in the sixth inning of a one-run game. It always is.
The Drinking Plan
Tuesday and Wednesday at 2 p.m. means one of two things: you've already told your boss about the dentist appointment, or you're about to.
If you're going out: any bar in South Philly with the sound on is the correct bar. Xfinity Live will be a zoo in a good way. If you're staying in: the game's on Peacock, the Philly Ballpark Pint Glass is $14.99, and it's an afternoon game so nobody can say anything about the first one at 1:45.
Pacing note: this is a best-of-three. There is no "rest day." Wednesday comes fast.
The Honest Take
This team has spent six months making us question everything and then doing the most Phillies thing possible, which is being unkillable when it matters and unwatchable when it doesn't.
They were 9-19. They fired the manager. They ripped off the best month in baseball in August. They limped through the last week hitting .163 and then won Game 162 like it was nothing. That's not a good team or a bad team. That's a chaos team. And chaos teams in a best-of-three against a pitcher with a 7.24 postseason ERA are exactly the kind of thing we live for.
Prediction: Phillies in three. Sale is Sale on Tuesday and we lose 3-1. Sánchez deals Wednesday, Schwarber does a Schwarber thing, 5-2. Thursday, Nola goes six, the bullpen gives us three separate heart attacks, and we're on a plane to LA.
It's Atlanta. In October. We've done this three times. Ring the bell.
The Sale, Because Red October Is a Whole Wardrobe
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Ends Sunday night.
