With the Philadelphia Phillies on magic number watch, their focus now is on finishing the regular season strong and striving for a top seed in the NL. The hurdles are slowly lowering for the Phillies as they secured their playoff spot on Friday and have the division title within reach.
The aura of Red October grows stronger by the day, and fans are patiently waiting until the calendar flips to October. Soon enough the energy spent on agonizing over regular season losses will transition into the hope of rising above it all with each progressing postseason round.
The Phillies are on a collision course for a playoff rematch with the Diamondbacks
The Phillies may also be matched up with a familiar foe in the Arizona Diamondbacks. It's not a certainty they will face the team that eliminated them from the NLCS last year, but if there is anything Phillies fans know, they will not go away quietly.
Until June 1, the Diamondbacks had a disappointing 26-32 record with a -1 run differential and sat in fourth place in the NL West. Since then, they have gone 61-36 and have propelled themselves into the second Wild Card spot with a chance to secure a home playoff series, per MLB.com. Their record currently sits at 87-68 with the best-scoring offense in all of baseball.
The Phillies clinched their playoff spot with Friday's big 12-2 win over the New York Mets and are still focused on bigger goals, like seizing the top seed in the NL and securing home-field advantage throughout the postseason, per MLB.com's Todd Zolecki. Their record is currently 92-63.
It's slightly different circumstances this season with both the Phillies and Diamondbacks adding to their win totals from last year, but the thought may creep in again that the Phillies will be expected to flex their muscle against the supposed lesser counterpart. It very well may come down to the Diamondbacks sneaking in while the Phillies fight for a first-round bye.
If the playoffs started today, the Phillies would meet the winner of a Diamondbacks-Padres Wild Card Series in the NLDS.
The Diamondbacks shocked everyone, including the Phillies, in last year's NLCS
What the Phillies don't want to have happen is what haunted them last year. The Phillies went from going up 2-0 in the NLCS to collapsing offensively and watching another team celebrate a Game 7 win at Citizens Bank Park — the same home field that harbored a sort of magic that produced the script for the Phillies to be the team of destiny in 2023.
That spell was broken by the Diamondbacks and gave the Phillies a reality check that nothing is a given in the postseason, even the unprecedented. Both teams are gearing up for the postseason and may match up again not long from now.
If it is indeed fate that will put these two teams against each other once more, all of Philadelphia will be behind this Phillies team that has some unfinished business in their quest for a championship.