A wild primer
The Phillies inconceivably stand three games back of a postseason berth for a multitude of reasons. The best explanation for how a team, once considered dead by many of its members, is luck and good timing.
A wild primer
Matt Gelb, Inquirer Staff Writer
The Phillies inconceivably stand three games back of a postseason berth for a multitude of reasons. The best explanation for how a team, once considered dead by many of its members, is luck and good timing.
Dissect it, and you'll see an old trend.
Their starting pitchers have a 3.01 ERA in their last 29 games. The Phillies have a 20-9 record during that stretch. It was the unit that brought so much success and a celebrated moniker in 2011.
It is what they must ride if this miracle of a comeback is to actually happen.
Tonight, in Houston, a 25-year-old junkballer named Tyler Cloyd takes the ball on short rest. He's the first Phillies pitcher asked to start on short rest this season. Even against a moribund squad like the Astros, there is still danger.
With days off, the Phillies can massage their rotation so that Cloyd makes only two more starts after Thursday, both against middling National League East teams.
9/13 @HOU: Cloyd
9/14 @HOU: Hamels
9/15 @HOU: Kendrick
9/16 @HOU: Halladay
9/17 @NYM: Lee
9/18 @NYM: Cloyd
9/19 @NYM: Hamels
9/20: OFF
9/21 vs. ATL: Kendrick
9/22 vs. ATL: Halladay
9/23 vs. ATL: Lee
9/24: OFF
9/25 vs. WAS: Hamels
9/26 vs. WAS: Kendrick
9/27 vs. WAS: Halladay
9/28 @MIA: Lee
9/29 @MIA: Cloyd
9/30 @MIA: Hamels
10/1 @WAS: Kendrick
10/2 @WAS: Halladay
10/3 @WAS: Lee
10/4: OFF
10/5 WILD CARD: Hamels
It's not a terrible scenario; every pitcher is going on regular rest (or extra rest in some instances). That has Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee pitching on the two final days of the season and Cole Hamels in line for a wild card one-game playoff start on regular rest.
A tiebreaker complicates things. If the Phillies tie another team for the second wild card berth, that tiebreaker is played Thursday. Home field is decided by season series records.
The Phillies had a winning record against three contenders:
vs. ARI: 4-2
vs. LAD: 2-5
vs. MIL: 5-2
vs. PIT: 3-4
vs. STL: 5-2
That means tiebreakers against Arizona, Milwaukee and St. Louis would be played at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday, Oct. 4. If the Phillies tie Los Angeles or Pittsburgh, the game is on the road.
Then, should the Phillies win a tiebreaker, the wild card one-game playoff is Friday, Oct. 5, probably in Atlanta. So the travel schedule, theoretically, could look like such:
Oct. 3 at Washington
Oct. 4 at Los Angeles
Oct. 5 at Atlanta
Godspeed.
Such a situation would necessitate starters on short rest to avoid using Cloyd. Hamels would pitch the tiebreaker on three days' rest with Kyle Kendrick starting the one-game playoff on three days' rest.
Of the six contenders (yes, we'll include Arizona), Arizona and St. Louis are tied for the softest remaining schedule by opponents' winning percentage.
STL: .464 -- 9 home (3 WAS, 3 CIN, 3 HOU), 10 road (4 LAD, 3 CHC, 3 HOU)
ARI: .464 -- 12 home (3 SFG, 3 SDP, 3 COL, 3 CHC), 7 road (3 SFG, 4 COL)
PIT: .467 -- 9 home (3 CIN, 3 ATL, 3 MIL), 11 road (4 NYM, 4 CHC, 3 HOU)
PHI: .493 -- 6 home (3 WAS, 3 ATL), 13 road (3 WAS, 3 NYM, 3 MIA, 4 HOU)
MIL: .504 -- 9 home (3 SDP, 3 NYM, 3 HOU), 10 road (4 WAS, 3 CIN, 3 PIT)
LAD: .532 -- 10 home (3 SFG, 4 STL, 3 COL), 9 road (3 WAS, 3 CIN, 3 SDP)
St. Louis heads to Los Angeles for a four-game series starting Thursday. The Phillies will be watching.
Have a question? Send it to Matt Gelb's Mailbag.
Keep winning at this rate, and they might catch Atlanta!— PhillyAustralian- The Phils may actually have the toughest schedule. Only 6 games left at home, against the Nats and Braves. 13 on the road, ending in DC. Looking at the schedules of all these teams, the next 7 games will most likely determine the Phils fate. On the road, but facing the Stros and Mutts, the Phils need to win a minimum of 5 of the 7, possibly 6 of them, to get into either the 2nd wildcard slot or very close to it before embarking on the rest of their schedule, all against playoff teams except for the Marlins. One advantage they do have, and maybe a big one, is the Nats may be resting guys, and maneuvering their rotation, during that last series in DC. Still, the Phils need to play every game with the urgency they have shown for the last two weeks, and sweep or near sweep the next two series to have a shot. This is playoff baseball - in September!— topwonk
- No Strasburg for Washington. Phils have 6 games against them. That improves their chances.— P Even
- 6 games against the team with the best record in baseball improves their chances? You need to stop smoking the red weed. — blaqjaq
- If you told me in mid-July that we would be having this conversation, I would have said you were nuts. I'll take it.— TVGuy22
- Or if you are the Nats and see a surging Phillies team do you activate Stasburg for 1 of the 6 games to knock Phillies down & keep him fresh for playoffs. You don't want a pitcher going into playoffs on a month rest...— Nova
- Except he's done. Completely. Strasburg will not pitch the playoffs, he's finished for the 2012 season. — rinehart
- Who'd have thought this article would need to be written?— PhillySubsMac
- If they win all 19 remaining games, I bet they get in.......
Exactly, I was looking at the standings last night and realized they are now only 8 games behind the Braves who seem to be crumbling again....wouldn't it be especially bizarre if they caught them at the wire, too?
PS.....for nearly the entire year, the Phils have been a better road ballclub....only 6 games at home won't bother them.— Mark1npt - Even though the Brewers swept the Braves the Braves have played pretty well in August (7-5). They swept the Mets before the Brewers series and took 3-of-4 from the Rockies. With half of their remaining games against the Marlins and Mets I think they're too far ahead to catch. They'd have to fail on a pretty epic level at this point. We'd be better off if they have won the Brewers series.
There's no room for error with the Phillies. I think they can't go any worse than 5-2 on this road trip to stay in it and it may take 6-1. Things will start to clarify next week with the Dodgers and Cards playing each other while we play the Astros. The DBacks play the Giants so they could get pushed out of the picture more. As bad as the Pirates have been playing, they're still in it and ahead of the Phillies and Matt shows that their schedule isn't so bad. Playing a tie-breaker in Pittsburgh may be the last thing we want. The Phillies have had problems winning out there for years.— s - Nova - if you are the Nats and Reds, you let the Cards win the last two series to keep the Phillies and Brewers out of the race.— dankil13
- What's fun to watch is grown-ups forget all the math they've ever learned in their lives, and toss out all their first-hand experiences to rationalize a near impossible outcome.
BTW, this team doesn't deserve to be in the "Playoffs". The wild cards are an abomination.
The meaning of "champion" is diluted when teams who barely win half their games can be considered "Play Off" contenders.— PhillyDanny - Bitter Met fan?
— the_anti_negadelphian - The math you learned must be different from the math I learned, since I don't consider 6% to equate to "near impossible"... I equate 6% to unlikely. And 6% is what neutral statistical programs compute as the likelihood of the Phillies making the playoffs... a probability which also doesn't take history into consideration (i.e. that the Phillies won 102 games last year, and most teams 3 games out with 20 to play did not). In short, it's fun to watch people who think they're smart look stupid in a comment thread. — PhillyPhan4for4
- If they keep winning, they will look like last year's Cards.— yobill626
