Phillies schedule: 5 instant reactions to the release
The Phillies schedule has officially been released
After months of wondering if there was even going to be a season, we finally got the 2020 Phillies schedule.
What the schedule doesn’t have is grueling 10 game road trips out west or Business Person Specials. What it does have is a lot of road games to start the year and a tough final stretch.
The rules of the 2020 schedule are a bit complex, but here’s a look at how it all works.
- Each team plays 40 games within their division
- 10 games over three series versus each NL East opponent
- Home/Road games split into 7/3 or 6/4 series
- Each team plays 20 interleague games
- Interleague games will be played against the AL East to make travel easier
- 6 games will be played against each AL East team
- Yankees, Orioles, Rays, Blue Jays, Red Sox
- Each team has only six days off once the season starts through the last day, scheduled for Sept. 27
Now, here’s the schedule released by MLB Network:
Your 2020 Phillies Schedule. 20 games on the road against teams with winning records. pic.twitter.com/pLlEiSu1Zt
— PHILLIES TBOH (@FS_TBOH) July 6, 2020
According to the full league schedule, the Phillies will play seven 1:05/1:35 p.m. games this year.
Here is some instant reaction to the Phillies schedule release.
The Phillies will play the Marlins on opening day and start with 5 home games
The Phillies will start the season at home against the Miami Marlins in a 7:05 game. Hopefully Aaron Nola will be ready after missing the first week of camp due to COVID-19 protocol for coming in contact with a confirmed case. Nola noted that he has tested negative for the virus and was only following the precautions before reporting to camp.
The Marlins are a young team but finished last season in dead last in the National League East. Some might give the Phillies a 3-0 start to the season off the bat, but Miami has some pieces that will keep them competitive.
Miami has a couple of options when it comes to their opening day starter. Their website lists Sandy Alcantara as their number one starter, but that could change for a myriad of reasons at this point. Alcantara pitched two complete game shutouts last year and had a 3.88 ERA in 32 starts. An All-Star in his first full season as a starter, Alcantara led the league with 14 losses, though playing for a terrible Marlins team didn’t help that.
After the Marlins the Phillies get the Yankees and should hopefully miss Gerrit Cole at home, assuming he makes the Yankees opening day start, but they’ll probably get him in Yankees stadium.
The Phillies schedule on the road is rough
Nothing is ideal in this season and the road game schedule is a big black eye for the Phillies. MLB Network noted that the NL and AL East might be the top two divisions in the game, so the Phillies don’t get a lot of breaks during the season.
Philadelphia has 20 road games against teams that had winning records last year. They also have an unflattering road trip in the middle of their season that will pinball them up and down the east coast.
Coming off a 10 game homestand, the Phillies go on the road for eight games against three teams. They will go from Philadelphia to Boston for just two games. After that, they head down south for three games against Atlanta. Then they get to bounce back up north for a three game series against Washington.
What’s even more fun is that after that 8 game road trip with likely no break they get the Braves and Nationals at home.
That Nationals/Braves stretch in the middle might be a season breaker with 13 games against the two best teams in the division over 14 days.
Thankfully, the Phillies schedule doesn’t have long trips down the stretch.
The schedule is set up so that the Phillies play an equal number of games (15) in the first 10 series and the last 10 series.
After that three series road trip the Phillies will have only one back-to-back road series, which is their final six games of the year. They get five home series within a seven series stretch in the second half of the season.
The travel is much easier after the homestand with Washington and Atlanta. They’ll make a trip to New York then return for two games against Boston. They’ll have to fly to Miami for four games but then return for six home games after that.
The Phillies schedule gets the Yankees out of the way early
The interleague schedule is kind of strange with the Phillies only having to play certain teams in one series and other teams in two series. They’ll either play three or four games against an AL East team.
Philadelphia drew the short end of the AL East stick and get the Yankees for four games instead of three, but they get them out of the way early.
Four of the first seven games on the Phillies schedule are against the Yankees and they’ll likely face Gerritt Cole in New York.
Thankfully, there won’t be any more Yankees on the Phillies schedule for the rest of the season after that opening stretch. No chance of facing Cole twice a year unless there’s a rogue, rare day off early on where he sits and faces the Phillies.
Phillies schedule doesn’t let them get the Orioles and Rays often
The Phillies only get three games against Baltimore, one of the worst teams in baseball. That extra game they could have gotten would have been nice, but 2020 is the reason we don’t get nice things.
The Baltimore series is also at home and thankfully there won’t be any Orioles fans who get to make the short trip to Philadelphia.
Like Miami, you can’t pencil in automatic wins against the Orioles, but you have a better chance at beating them than any other team you’ll face this year.
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That final seven game stretch on the road against Washington and Tampa Bay could decide the Phillies fate in 2020. Like Baltimore, Tampa Bay only gets one shot at the Phillies this year and it’s the last three games of the season.