Underdog Phillies Roar Into Atlanta To Chase World Series Dreams: What To Know

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Once, this was a quiet town come early fall.

But the tides of the Schuylkill River glimmer blood red at night now. The shimmer of the reflected lights from Boathouse Row and Center City bespeak a Red October. They mean Phillie red reigns supreme, and they mean Cardinal blood has been spilt.

Brave blood runs the same red, it turns out.

Here's everything you need to know about the Phillies playoff matchup against the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series.

How we got here

The Phillies stunned the St. Louis Cardinals in the Wild Card series, defeating them in back to back games to sweep the series, 2-0. The series went almost exactly as Patch had previously predicted: "the Phillies win two pitching duels in a row, 5-2 in Game 1 and 1-0 in Game 2" (the Phillies won 6-3 in Game 1 and 2-0 in Game 2).

The Phillies entered the playoffs as the 6th seed, the lowest NL seed and third Wild Card, after finishing the season 87-75. Even making it into playoff contention was a huge accomplishment for the Phillies, who fired manager Joe Girardi after a 22-29 start. But under Rob Thomson (whose interim manager label was removed Monday, as he signed a two-year extension), the Phillies went 65-46 from June 1 on in a brutally tough NL East. Thomson is the only manager in Major League Baseball history to win a playoff series after taking over a losing team in the middle of the regular season.

RELATED: Phillies Sign Manager Rob Thomson To 2 Year Deal

The Braves, meanwhile, were baseball's best team in the second half of the season. They caught the Mets in the last week of the season to win the NL East for the fifth year in a row and earn a first round bye. They're the 2nd seed in the NL.

What could happen next

If the Phillies win the NLDS, effectively MLB's quarterfinal, they would play the winner of the other NLDS matchup between the top seeded Los Angeles Dodgers and the 5th seeded San Diego Padres.

The winner of that National League Championship Series will play the American League champion in the World Series.

Or, as newly-signed manager Rob Thomson has been saying, "11 more wins."

Schedule and television

The Phillies and Braves will play a best of five series. Tuesday and Wednesday night are in Atlanta, before playoff baseball returns to Philadelphia for the first time in 11 years on Friday and Saturday.

Game 1: Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 1:07 pm., on Fox, in Atlanta

Game 2: Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 4:35 p.m. on Fox, in Atlanta

Game 3: Friday, Oct. 14, TBD, on FS1, in Philadelphia

Game 4: Saturday, Oct. 15, on FS1, in Philadelphia (if necessary)

Game 5: Sunday, October 16, TBD, on FS1, in Atlanta (if necessary)

Tickets to the home games are on sale. They're unsurprisingly sold out on the Phillies official site, but they're available starting at $201 on Stubhub.

Matchups

Game 1: Phillies number three starter and homegrown talent Ranger Suarez (3.65 regular season ERA) will take the mound for Game 1, as their co-aces Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler are recovering after pitching against the Cardinals in the Wild Card series. In five games against the Braves' stacked lineup during the regular season, Suarez threw to a stellar 3.21 ERA.

The Braves will counter with one of the game's best, left hander Max Fried (2.48 ERA).

Game 2: Wheeler will get the ball for the Phillies for Game 2. Wheeler dominated the Cards for 7 innings in his Wild Card start. His 2.82 regular season ERA would have placed him 6th in the National League (he missed qualifying for the ERA title by a handful of innings, as injuries limited him to 154 on the season). Wheeler has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since 2020 by any metric, 2022 injuries notwithstanding.

The Braves haven't announced their starter for Game 2, but it will almost certainly be Rookie of the Year candidate Spencer Strider, a 24-year-old fireballer.

Game 3: Nola, who shut down the Cardinals in the Wild Card too, will get the ball for the Phillies home game on Friday. It's only fitting that one of the team's longest tenured players, the man who is as much the face of this rebuild as Rhys Hoskins or anyone else, the quiet leader and one of the most underrated aces in the game, will be the starter for the first Phillies playoff game in 11 years.

The Braves also haven't announced their Game 3 starter, but it will be either Charlie Morton, a veteran with plenty of playoff experience, or youngster Kyle Wright (3.19 ERA), coming off his first full year that proved the injury-plagued potential he'd long flashed in the minors and in flashes in the majors.

Game 4: Neither team has announced their Game 4 or 5 starters. The Phillies would probably go with Bailey Falter or Noah Syndergaard, if this game was necessary. Falter, long a star of the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, was stellar down the stretch.

The Braves could throw Fried on short rest, if they had to. More likely is they'd roll with whoever didn't pitch Game 3 between Morton and Wright.

Game 5: A potential deciding Game 5 would probably see the Phillies turn back to Wheeler on 3 days of rest, with Suarez and either Falter or Syndergaard as backup. Fried would start this game for the Braves, if he didn't in Game 4, and would be supplemented by Strider in an elimination game.

Analysis

The Phillies went 8-11 against the Braves during the regular season, but that included a number of incredibly tight matchups. The run differential for the 19-game regular season series between the two arch rivals was razor thin: 88-85, in favor of the Braves.

The Braves have clear advantages in right field, center field, and third base.

The Phillies have clear advantages at designated hitter (Bryce Harper), left field (Kyle Schwarber), and catcher (J.T. Realmuto).

First base, second base, and shortstop are pretty close to toss-ups, especially if you look at Phillies rookie Bryson Stott's statistics in the second half of the year.

Starting pitching depth belongs to the Braves, but the Phillies have the surer 1-2 punch in Nola and Wheeler. In a short 5-game series which Wheeler could throw twice, this amounts to a toss-up.

The Braves have the edge in the bullpen, but this Phillies group headlined by new bullpen option and closer Zach Eflin is fresh and well-rested. The Atlanta edge here is not decisive.

Patch prediction: The Braves win a slugfest in Game 1, 11-7. The Phillies win tighter pitching matchups behind Wheeler and Nola in Games 2 and 3, 4-1 and 1-0. They close it out behind 6 innings of two-run ball from Bailey Falter in Game 4 and stun the Braves before the Philadelphia crowd, 3 games to 1.

Odds

Once again, the Phillies are underdogs, this time by a larger margin than the Wild Card series. The Braves are minus 200 favorites, to the Phillies plus 170 underdog status, according to Oddshark.

That's no surprise, as the Braves now have the third highest World Series odds behind the Dodgers and Astros. They won 101 games in the regular season. They were completely dominant in the second half. They have a good chance to win their second World Series in a row, a feat no franchise has achieved since the late 90s Yankees.

But ask the 2011 Phillies, the 2021 Dodgers (or the Dodgers in any year but 2020), or the 2022 Cardinals: winning a division and cruising into the playoffs with a stellar record, only to be beaten by a team that had to claw their way there. Regular season success only means so much. And this Phillies team is built to win short series.

Predictions from around the league

The fickle figures folks over at Fangraphs give the Braves a 54 percent chance of winning the series, and the Phillies a 46 percent chance. For context: they gave the Cardinals a 55 percent chance of winning the Wild Card series over the Phillies. Statcast in-game predictions gave the Cardinals a 99 percent chance of beating the Phillies entering the 9th inning of Game 1, so all things mathematical and written on papers must be taken with grains of sodium.

ESPN gives the Phillies a 38.8 percent chance of beating the Braves.