Phillies officially eliminated from playoff contention
By John Town
A season with high hopes is now officially over as the Phillies were eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday afternoon.
Thanks to their loss Tuesday afternoon in the first game of a doubleheader with the Nationals, the Phillies are now officially eliminated from the playoffs. Considering the amount of hype coming into the season, this will be viewed as nothing but a disappointment.
This will be the eighth season in a row Philadelphia will miss the playoffs. Only the White Sox, Padres, Marlins, and Mariners have been out of the playoffs longer.
All but one of the National League’s divisions are locked up with the Cardinals the most likely pick to win the Central. At this point, it appears that the Nationals will host the Brewers in the wild-card game barring a massive surge from the Cubs or Mets.
The loss puts Philadelphia at 79-76 pending the result of the second game of the doubleheader. They need to win three of their final six games just to finish with a winning record this season. In this case, they would have improved just two wins from their 80-82 record last year.
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A playoff berth seemed like a certainty two months into the season as Philadelphia’s playoff odds were 66.7% on May 29 according to Fangraphs. At that point, they were 33-22 with a 3.5 game lead in the NL East and the second-best record in the NL.
The season went off the rails from there as the club has gone 36-44 since then. Their playoffs odds had dropped to 24.2% following an 11-16 June.
Their odds hovered around there through July before crashing down to 2.5% by the end of August. A sweep by the Red Sox a week and a half ago left their playoffs odds near-zero and Tuesday’s loss to the Nationals put the nail in the coffin.
Fans and media will spend all offseason dissecting what led to Philadelphia missing the playoffs following a high-profile offseason with numerous acquisitions. Will the year be blamed on the injuries that piled up or the front office for doing little to compensate for those losses? Will manager Gabe Kapler become the scapegoat?
dark. Next. Phillies to start Blake Parker, officially give up
There are plenty of questions left to be answered, but what we know for certain is that it will be another year without playoff baseball.