The 2024 Major League Baseball regular season is winding down. Despite a long slump coming out of the All-Star break, the Philadelphia Phillies have the second-best record in the majors and are only 0.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the top seed in the National League.
The Phillies have 23 games left in the regular season, and they’re starting to heat up at just the right time.
Who would the Phillies play if the postseason started today?
The Phillies are in a position that they haven’t found themselves in heading into the final stretch of the season the previous two years. They’re 7.0 games ahead of the Atlanta Braves after a 3-1 series win over their rivals last weekend. If Rob Thomson’s team can hold onto the lead, the Phillies will earn their first division title since the 2011 team.
If the postseason started today, the Phillies would be the No. 2 seed and have a first-round bye. They would take on the winner of the NL Wild Card Series between the No. 3 seed Milwaukee Brewers and the No. 6 seed Braves.
The Brewers are having a very good season. They’re just 2.5 games back of the Phillies in the NL standings and hold a 9.0-game lead over the Chicago Cubs for first place in the NL Central.
The Phillies will head to Milwaukee to take on the Brewers in a three-game series starting on Sept. 16. The Phillies were able to sweep the Brewers back in the first week of June in Rhys Hoskins’ return to Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies outscored the Brewers 7-2 in a low-scoring series, including a 2-1 10th-inning win on June 4. The upcoming series could be a postseason preview.
Phillies could play the Braves for the third straight postseason
It’s possible that the Phillies and the Braves will face each other for the third consecutive postseason. This time, the Phillies will likely be the division winner with the Braves looking to pull off an upset as a Wild Card team.
The Phillies snuck into the playoffs as the No. 6 seed in 2022 and ended up defeating the No. 2 seed Braves in four games in the NLDS. In 2023, the Phillies were the No. 4 seed and the Braves were the No. 1 seed. The Phillies swept the Miami Marlins in the Wild Card Series and took down the Braves in four games in the NLDS for the second straight postseason.
The NL East rivals have seen a lot of each other recently. They’ve faced off seven times since Aug. 20 with the Phillies winning four of those games. The Braves won the season series by one game with a 7-6 record against the Phillies this year.
The Phillies have a well-rounded team with one of the best rosters in all of baseball. It looks as though they’ve put the losing behind them and are heating up heading into the postseason. They’re 8-2 in their last 10 games and 14-6 in their last 20 games, including four straight series wins over three of the top 13 teams in the majors.
The playoff picture could change a lot over the final four weeks of the regular season. The NL Wild Card race is tight, and each division could still be up for grabs. The Phillies can’t ease up if they want to earn home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.