Phillies Playoff Chances: How They Can End Drought As Season Nears End

PHILADELPHIA, PA — There are eight days left of regular season baseball in 2022. The Phillies have 9 games in that span. Come late night Oct. 5, no matter how those games are played, the Phillies will either have their first playoff berth in 11 years, or they'll be watching the fall colors fade from red to yellow to gray at home for a National League-leading 12th straight autumn.

A mini-September collapse not withstanding, the Phillies still appear in good position for the stretch run. They're 1.5 games ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers for the final Wild Card spot. They trail the San Diego Padres by 2.5 games for the second. They hold the tiebreaker over both teams. Six of their remaining 9 games are against a pair of deeply struggling squads, the Washington Nationals and the Chicago Cubs, though they fell to the north siders at Wrigley Tuesday night, 2-1.

The Phillies have an 84.7 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to Fangraphs' latest odds. Those odds fell 1.7 percent after last night's loss, but they're still very high. Here's why.

If the Phillies go 7-2 in their last 9 games, they'll clinch a spot automatically. The Brewers could go 8-0 in their final eight games in that scenario, tie the Phillies with a 90-72 season record, and the Phillies would still make it with the tiebreaker (regular season wins over the Brewers).

If the Phillies go 6-3, the Brewers would have to again go undefeated at 8-0 to beat them into the playoffs by one game. A 5-4 Phillies finish would require a 7-1 Brewers tear. Even if the Phillies go 4-5 — which would have to be considered a true collapse, given the stakes — the Brewers would still need to go 6-2.

Based on the way they've been playing this season, and the fact that Phillies' final 3 games are against a Houston Astros team that has its top seed in the American League locked up, a 5-4 or 6-3 record in these last 9 feels like the most likely outcome.

And they still have a chance to catch the Padres. San Diego still has games left against the team with the best record in the MLB, the Los Angeles Dodgers. If the Padres end their last 8 with a 4-4 record, a 6-3 Phillies finish would put them over the top. A 3-5 Padres finish would mean the Phillies just need to go 5-4. It's possible.

But is it preferable? Right now, the sixth-seeded Phillies would play the third-seeded St. Louis Cardinals in the opening round, best of 3 playoff series. That's because the Cardinals are the Central Division champions, and automatically get a higher seed than the Atlanta Braves, who have a better record and have been better than any team in baseball since they emerged from a slow start in May.

To get back to the playoffs, the bats will need to wake up in Chicago Wednesday and Thursday nights. They were stymied Tuesday by a vintage form Marcus Stroman. These are the biggest games of the careers of the Phillies homegrown core: Rhys Hoskins, Alec Bohm, and Bryson Stott have never played more meaningful baseball. Nor has Wednesday night's starter, Phillies ace Aaron Nola, who needs to put his team on his back as he's done for eight years just one more time.

First pitch at Wrigley is 7:40 p.m. Wednesday.