Phillies need massive August to have any playoff chances
After a weak June and middling July, the Phillies now need to get incredibly hot in August to have any shot at the playoffs.
As you know if you have been following the Phillies at all this year, the first two months of the season were not nearly as good as the most recent two. They were 33-24 and three games up in the National League East at the end of May. By the end of July, their record dropped to 56-51, and they fell to third place and seven games behind the Braves in the division.
At the end of May, Philadelphia’s playoff odds were 57.6% according to Fangraphs. Following Thursday’s win against the Giants, those odds are just 25.3% pending the results of Thursday night’s games. Their odds of winning the division fell from 37.8% to only 1.7%.
With the sizable gap now present in the division race and another team (Washington) between Philadelphia and Atlanta, their only realistic hope of making the playoffs is via the wild card.
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Thursday’s win brought Philadelphia into a tie for the second wild-card with the Nationals. Milwaukee and San Francisco are both within sniffing distance at one game and 2.5 games back, respectively. The Cubs and Cardinals are tied for the first spot, but whoever wins Thursday night will take sole control over the NL Central.
While Philadelphia is undoubtedly right in the thick of the wild card race, they are by no means a lock. They are realistically in competition for two wild-card spots with four other teams, and one or two more could even find their way into the race. That’s why they need to have a successful August to keep up in playoff race.
Thankfully, the schedule in August is relatively friendly to the Phillies. Out of the nine teams they face, only the Giants, Cubs, and Red Sox are above .500. While Philadelphia isn’t exactly a stellar team either, it’s better to face teams like the White Sox, Marlins, and Pirates than the Dodgers, Yankees, and Braves.
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It will require playing as they did in May, but if the Phillies can get hot in August, it will boost their playoff chances significantly.