Phillies turn their attention to securing No. 2 seed in NL playoffs: ‘We need the bye’

PHOENIX — The Phillies enter the final week of the regular season with their playoff positioning all but locked up.

The magic number to clinch the No. 2 seed is down to 2 after a Los Angeles Dodgers loss to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday. Any combination of 2 Phillies wins and Dodgers losses will do.

They can secure the coveted bye as early as Tuesday. Catching the Brewers for the No. 1 seed is unlikely. Milwaukee’s magic number over the Phillies for the top seed is 3.

Sunday’s 9-2 loss over the Diamondbacks snapped the Phillies’ streak of six consecutive series wins. Ranger Suárez had his worst start in the last five weeks, the infield defense was not sharp and Alec Bohm recorded four hits in a game for the ninth time in his career. Nobody got hurt.

At this point, the wins and losses matter a lot less than getting to the finish line.

“I want to clinch the bye, for sure,” Bryce Harper said postgame. “That’s the biggest thing for all of us, right? Obviously, there are some guys playing for some numbers, things like that. As a team, we need the bye.”

The Phillies will fly home from Phoenix late Sunday afternoon. They won’t play on the road again until Oct. 7. They could be right back in Arizona. The Diamondbacks are a game behind the Cincinnati Reds for the final Wild Card spot in the National League.

Who the Phillies could play in the Division Series has become a more intriguing question in recent days. The New York Mets fell out of the final Wild Card spot on Sunday via a tiebreaker after losing two out of three to the Washington Nationals. If the season ended today, the Phillies would play the winner of a Wild Card series between the Dodgers and Reds.

Since the postseason expanded from five teams in each league to six in 2022, teams that receive the bye are 6-6 in the Division Series. Two teams with byes, the 2022 Houston Astros and 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers, have won the World Series. The Phillies knocked off the Atlanta Braves, a team whose manager loudly complained about the layoff, in back-to-back years in 2022 and 2023. The Phillies were the only team with a bye to lose in the Division Series in last year’s postseason.

Whether the bye helps or hurt the Phillies is a discussion to be had on the outside. On the inside, the Phillies are happy to use the five days off to rest its mostly veteran core and set up the rotation.

“I would love a couple days off,” Harper said.

“There’s no excuse for a bye,” Kyle Schwarber said after the Phillies clinched the NL East in Los Angeles. “We want it. I would take the bye in a heartbeat. When you’re guaranteed to advance one round, that’s what I’d sign up for.”

In other words, the bye won’t be used as an excuse if the team falls flat again in the first round.

“It’s worked for some teams, obviously, and there’s others that complained about it,” Harper said. “I don’t think we’re going to be one of those teams. We weren’t last year. I’m looking forward to having it. … I can’t stand the stance (some) teams have taken: ‘Oh well, if we would have played.’ I think it’s all nonsense. We’ve just got to play our game, understand postseason baseball is a lot different than anything else. Just gotta be in the right frame of mind going into Game 1 of the DS and ready to roll.”

Getting to full strength, relatively speaking, is a priority over the final six games and during the five-day layoff between the regular season finale and Game 1 of the NLDS. Edmundo Sosa (right groin strain) is expected to be activated from the 10-day injured list on Tuesday. Trea Turner (right hamstring strain) is on track to return before the end of the regular season. Jordan Romano (right middle finger inflammation) hasn’t picked up a ball yet. His season is likely over.

For some, the final six games are for numbers. Turner has a six-point lead over Chicago’s Nico Hoerner for the National League batting title. Kyle Schwarber has an outside chance of tying or breaking Ryan Howard’s Phillies single-season record of 58 home runs.

Coming back could either help or hurt Turner’s chances.

“I know that’s on his mind,” Harper said. “I really hope he gets it. He deserves it. He’s been one of the best players in the National League this year. Kind of a slap in the face to everyone else that he wasn’t an All-Star, and now he’s doing what he’s doing.”