It's easy to forget just how far off this looked in late April. The Phillies were buried under .500, Rob Thomson was out, and Don Mattingly was suddenly running the club. What's followed has felt like something closer to destiny than a simple bounce-back. Philadelphia has been one of the best teams in baseball for months now (minus a tough stretch post All-Star break), dragging a club left for dead back into the thick of a real race, and the energy around this team has been extremely different ever since (and especially after hitting up the cornfields). That kind of turnaround doesn't happen by accident, so fans should be locked into what could bring postseason baseball to Philly.
The current climate? The Phillies currently hold a Wild Card spot, trailing Atlanta in the NL East and sitting within shouting distance of the Cubs for the top Wild Card seed, while Milwaukee and the Dodgers have separated themselves as the two best teams in the league. That gap is important more than it might seem, because of how MLB's playoff format actually works.
What securing home field actually requires for Phillies this October
Twelve teams make the postseason, six per league, seeded one through six, and the two division winners with the best records get a bye straight to the Division Series. The catch: that means the third division winner doesn't automatically get a bye just for winning its division. Right now, that's Atlanta's "problem", but a problem the Phillies would love to have. With Milwaukee and Los Angeles both sitting ahead of the Braves in the standings, Atlanta would currently be the No. 3 seed as the NL East champion, forced into a best-of-three Wild Card Series against a Wild Card team, but still at home.
That's the door still open for the Phillies. Every Wild Card Series is played entirely at the higher seed's ballpark. So there are really two distinct paths to any Citizens Bank Park home field advantage this October.
The simpler one: catch the Cubs for the top Wild Card seed, flipping home field in a Wild Card matchup between those two teams instead of playing every game at Wrigley. The bigger one, and the one that would really get this fanbase buzzing: catch Atlanta outright for the division. Even without touching Milwaukee or Los Angeles for the top seeds in the league, winning the NL East would give Philadelphia the No. 3 seed and home field for the Wild Card round, regardless of who they draw.
Obviously, neither of the two is even close to a guarantee with five weeks left in the season. But for a team that was 10 games under .500 in April and has looked like one of the best teams in baseball for most of the summer since, both could be very much alive. The Phillies don't need to catch Milwaukee or LA to host October baseball. They just need to catch Atlanta, or at minimum, catch the Cubs. Either one puts this team in front of its own fans when it matters most, and that always gives the squad a legit chance.
Monday, Aug. 31, through Monday, Sept. 7, may be the determinative stretch of this Phillies season. Three on the road against Arizona, followed by a four-game home set with Atlanta. Win both series, taking five of seven, and this dream starts to feel far more like a reality.
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