Phillies lose ground to Brewers, but schedules help their slim chance at NL’s No. 1 seed

If Monday night’s win over the Dodgers that clinched the Phillies the NL East didn’t also effectively seal them a first-round bye in the National League postseason bracket, Tuesday’s did. By the time the Phillies finished off a relatively lifeless effort on Wednesday to come up short of a sweep, the implications as far as the Dodgers are concerned were basically none. 

So the focus shifts beyond the Wild Card Series entirely. The Phillies reflected as much by reshuffling their rotation to give Cristopher Sánchez the ball on Tuesday against the Marlins, therefore again on Sunday in Game 162, therefore in Game 1 of the NLDS the following Saturday on five days’ rest.

The Phillies, though, are still chasing the No. 1 seed in the NL playoff field — which, yes, would give the team with baseball’s best home record home-field advantage in the NLCS, but the part they might not say explicitly is arguably more impactful: an NLDS matchup against either the Cubs or the Padres, rather than the Dodgers or, say, the Mets.

In that regard, hope dwindled a bit on Wednesday, with the aforementioned 5-0 loss and a second straight 9-2 Brewers win over the hapless Angels. The Phillies are 2 1/2 games off Milwaukee, and they need to make up 3 ½ because they’ve lost the tiebreaker.

There’s still hope, thanks to the schedule makers.

It’s not just that the Phillies will finish the season with three games against the Marlins, who are 17-25 since ascending to .500 on Aug. 3, and the Twins, who are 15-29 since shipping Harrison Bader, Jhoan Duran and everyone else off at the trade deadline. Though those things help. 

It’s also that the Brewers could be matching up with desperation from here on out. After one more game, likely a 9-2 win, against the Angels on Thursday, the Brewers end the season against the Cardinals, Padres and Reds. Juggernauts? Nah. Contenders? I guess.

St. Louis definitely won’t be in the mix when all is said and done but, as of now, can tell themselves, 4 1/2 back of the last Wild Card spot, they have a fighting chance. Whether they turn that into anything useful is another question, of course. They’ve lost seven of nine. At least the Brewers games are in Missouri.

The Padres are firmly in the postseason picture but still have a division race on their hands: They’re two games back of the Dodgers and need to make up three. That division title is the difference between hosting the last postseason qualifier and traveling to Wrigley Field in the Wild Card Series. Phillies fans should hope the NL West is still close when the Brewers head out west for Games 157-159.

And then there are the Reds, who could very well be toast by Game 160. Right now, though, they’re two games back of the last Wild Card spot and have sealed the tiebreaker over the Mets and Diamondbacks (they lead the Giants slightly in intradivision record, but that’s still very much up in the air). As long as the Phillies keep it close, the Reds staying in the postseason hunt as long as possible would bode well for Philadelphia in that chase for the top seed. 

Of course, the Phillies don’t get those friendly Marlins and Twins series until after they play a desperate team, the Diamondbacks, themselves. Arizona just reshuffled its rotation, turning to a four-man as they try to chase down the Mets from 1 1/2 games behind with the tiebreaker likely at their backing. 

Still, overall, the schedules are in the Phillies’ favor heading into the season’s final nine games.

Still, overall, they’re fighting an uphill battle. Soon enough, they’ll likely be set into the No. 2 seed, and our focus will pivot to matchups: Which Wild Card contender has the best chance to knock off the Dodgers? Which Wild Card contender would you most like the Phillies to avoid, or conversely, most prefer they welcome to Citizens Bank Park on Oct. 4? Would you rather just play the Dodgers and their bullpen anyway? 

Rest assured, we’ll get there when we get there.