Phillies Vs. Cardinals Playoff Schedule: Times, Matchups, Odds

PHILADLEPHIA, PA — For the first time in 11 years, the Phillies are playing postseason baseball. Here's what you need to know.

2022's new playoff layout

As a result of the new collective bargaining agreement laid out at the 11th hour before the 2022 season, there are no more winner-take-all Wild Card playoff games.

Instead, the playoff field has been expanded from 5 teams in each league, to 6. The top two seeds in each league get a first round bye, while the next four teams play a best of 3 game series. All three games are hosted by the higher seed.

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Schedule and television

The Phillies and Cardinals will play a best of three series, with games on three days in a row if neccessary, no breaks. All three games are in St. Louis, so the Phillies will need to win the series to bring a playoff game back to south Philadelphia.

• Game 1: Friday, Oct. 7, 2:07 p.m. on ABC
• Game 2: Saturday, Oct. 8, 8:37 p.m. on ESPN2
• Game 3, if neccessary: Sunday, Oct. 9, 8:37 p.m. on ESPN2

Matchups

Game 1 will feature Zack Wheeler, the Phillies stalwart ace, whose 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 Cardinals will counter in Game 1 with veteran Jose Quintana, long a solid mid-rotation arm who signed a paltry deal with a rebuilding Pittsburgh squad last winter. He was still solid much of the year but turned it into another gear entirely after St. Louis acquired him at the trade deadline. The southpaw pitched to a monstrous 1.18 ERA down the last 7 games of the Cardinals' stretch run.

In Game 2, the Phillies will hand the ball to Aaron Nola to hopefully close the series out. A team leader and the face of the franchise rebuild alongside Rhys Hoskins, Nola quietly had perhaps the second best season of his career in 2022, finishing fourth in the majors in strikeouts and turning in a stellar 3.25 ERA while throwing more innings than almost anyone.

The Cardinals have not yet announced their Game 2 or 3 starters. The Phillies would roll out Ranger Suarez in Game 3, if they had to.

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Spilling Cardinal blood

There's a reason why Phillies fans are calling this series with St. Louis the "Ryan Howard revenge tour."

The all time Phillies great was never the same after making the final out of the 2011 National League Division Series, the last time the Phils were in the postseason. Howard tore his achilles running down the first base line on that play. He came back, but he was not the MVP-caliber athlete he'd been in his prime ever again.

It also marked the end of the Phillies dynasty as baseball's pre-eminent team. The legendary five-year run atop the NL East included a World Series title and two National League pennants. Along with Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt all ended their careers shortly thereafter, and never played a playoff game as a Phillie again.

The thing is, the Cardinals find themselves in a similar situation to those 2011 Phillies. They've got a trio of all-time greats at the very tail end of their careers: Adam Wainwright, Albert Pujols, and Yadier Molina could all retire after this season. The Phillies could end this iconic Cardinals trio run as unceremoniously as the Cardinals ended that run of the 2011 Phils.

Analysis

The new playoff layout undoubtedly offers the Phillies a significant advantage.

For starters, a best of three series favors them perhaps more than any other team, as their two aces, Nola and Wheeler, can go toe to toe with anyone. While a one-game Wild Card can be subject to a host of variables, the odds are good that the Phillies win at least one of the first two games their co-aces start.

On top of that, they’re lucky they’re playing the Cardinals, and not the Mets. It's not a knock on the Cardinals, but rather a reflection that the Phillies played the Red Birds to a close 3-4 record in the regular season. They went 5-14 when facing the dreaded Metropolitans, who finished several games better than the Cardinals, but to be fair to the Fightins, that included a number of very close battles.

Positionally, the Phillies have the clear advantage when it comes to starting pitching and catching. The Cardinals have the clear advantage in the bullpen and on defense. Offensively beyond that, the two teams match up evenly: a mix of likely future Hall of Fame veterans and rookies that hit for both average and power.

Patch Prediction: Phillies win two pitching duels in a row, 5-2 in Game 1 and 1-0 in Game 2, behind a 9 inning, complete game shutout from Aaron Nola, bringing Chris Carpenter's 1-0 pitching duel victory over Roy Halladay in that fateful 2011 game full circle.

Odds and predictions from around the league

Oddsmakers are going with the surer deal, as the Cardinals had a better regular season record, albeit against a significantly weaker NL Central divsion. Oddshark places the Cards as minus 140 favorites, while the Phillies are at plus 110.

Experts and analysts with a wide variety of baseball-related and unrelated backgrounds are more split.

A smattering of CBS writers landed with 5 on the Cardinals side, and 2 on the Phillies side. Former multi-time MVP Alex Rodriguez picks the Cardinals.

FiveThirtyEight's various divinations and arithmetic dervishes, meanwhile, give the Cardinals a 55 percent chance of winning, and the Phillies a 45 percent chance.

National League playoff bracket

Here's how things look in the National League.

Round 1

Bye: (1) Los Angeles Dodgers and (2) Atlanta Braves

Wild Card: (3) St. Louis Cardinals vs. (6) Philadelphia Phillies and (4) New York Mets vs. (5) San Diego Padres

Round 2

NL Division Series: Dodgers vs. winner of Mets and Padres, and Braves vs. winner of Phillies and Cardinals

So if the Phillies can take down the Cardinals, they'll get a shot at the Atlanta Braves, the defending World Series champions