Standings Update: Phillies continue to close the gap in the NL East on a beat up Braves team, but the Wild Card wouldn’t be too bad either

I’m going to say something that might sound crazy given how much ground the Phillies have made up over the last month, but I genuinely don’t want this team to win the NL East this year.

I’ve watched the Phillies win back-to-back division titles and then lay eggs in the postseason both times, and the common thread between those two October collapses was a team that coasted into the playoffs with a comfortable lead, played meaningless games down the stretch, and then showed up for the first round flat and rusty while the Wild Card teams came in hot from fighting for their lives through September.

The time off that comes with clinching the division early doesn’t help anyone and I’m a firm believer after watching the last two postseasons that the Phillies need the grind of a Wild Card race to build the kind of momentum and sharpness that carries over into October.

A team that’s been in dogfights every night through August and September and claws its way into the playoffs with everything on the line is a fundamentally different animal than a team that clinches in mid-September, rests its starters for two weeks, and then tries to flip the switch against a hungry opponent who has been playing elimination baseball for a month.

That said, I will never not root to win baseball games.

Every night, every series, every pitch, I’m a gentleman about it so the conversation ain’t about tanking the division race or being happy with second place, it’s about looking at where things are, how the Phillies got here, and why the Wild Card path might actually be the better road to a deep October run.

Hell of a turnaround for the Phillies under Donny

Everyone knows the story by now. The Phillies started 9-19 and looked like the season was over before May. They fired Thomson, promoted Mattingly, and have gone 33-16 since April 28 with 12 series wins in 16 played. They crept back to a game over .500 on May 26 for the first time since April 7 and have been climbing steadily ever since while playing some of the best baseball in the National League.

The problem for the first month of the Mattingly era was that no matter how many games the Phillies won, they couldn’t close the gap on Atlanta because the Braves were winning at almost the same rate. The Phillies went 21-10 from when Mattingly took over through the end of May, which was the best record in baseball over that stretch, and the Braves went 19-11 over the same period to maintain their spacious lead at the top of the NL East. The Phillies were playing historically great baseball under their new manager and the division deficit barely moved because Atlanta refused to lose.

Then June happened and the gap finally started shrinking.

The Phillies are 12-6 this month while Atlanta has gone 8-8, and the deficit that was 10.5 games exactly one month ago has been trimmed to 6.5 heading into Tuesday’s game. The Phillies have gained four games on the Braves since May 22 and the question now is whether they can gain four more over the next month to get within striking distance heading into August.

Atlanta Is Starting to Break Down and the Schedule Favors the Phillies

The Braves haven’t just been vulnerable lately because their injury situation is starting to pile up in ways that could significantly impact their ability to maintain the division lead through the summer.

Ronald Acuña Jr. went on the IL on June 10 with another hamstring injury and manager Walt Weiss told reporters last week that the five-time All-Star and 2023 NL MVP was “a long way” from getting back, which is the kind of language that suggests Acuña might not return until August or September if he returns at all this season.

Spencer Strider was shut down for at least four weeks with elbow inflammation and placed on the 60-day IL, which removes one of the most dominant arms in baseball from a rotation that was already dealing with depth issues.

Spencer Schwellenbach has been on the IL since the start of the season after an elbow procedure and Hurston Waldrep also had elbow surgery before the season and has only been on a rehab assignment since June 12.

The Braves’ pitching depth is getting thinner by the week and the one arm they can rely on, Chris Sale, has already thrown 84 innings which projects to around 160-plus for the season. Sale is a frequently injured 37-year-old who has thrown 160-plus innings just once since 2017 and managed only 125.2 last year, so the idea that he’s going to carry the rotation through September and into October without breaking down is a bet that Atlanta is making with a lot of historical evidence working against them.

The schedule is where things get really interesting for the Phillies because 12 of Atlanta’s next 19 games before the All-Star break come against teams that are .500 or better, while only four of the Phillies’ next 20 games come against .500-or-better competition.

The Phillies have a four-game set vs the Nationals at 40-38, four more against the Pirates at 39-39 who the Phillies already swept in Pittsburgh earlier this season, and then six of their last nine games before the break come against the Royals at 32-46 and the Tigers at 33-44 with a three-game set against the below-.500 Reds at 37-39 sandwiched in between.

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That’s a schedule that is practically begging the Phillies to rattle off wins while Atlanta grinds through tougher competition with a banged-up roster that is missing its best position player and multiple starting pitchers. Whittling two or three more games off that 6.5-game deficit over the next few weeks doesn’t seem impossible when the Phillies are playing the worst teams in baseball while the Braves are playing the best.

Dog Days First, Then September

The Phillies and Braves don’t play each other again until September when they’ll clash seven times in the season’s final month. If the Phillies can surge into September with first place still in striking distance, those two series against Atlanta become the kind of head-to-head matchups where a team can control its own destiny and take the division lead directly instead of hoping the Braves lose to someone else.

Anything can happen between now and then because the Phillies could slide again, the Braves could get healthy and go on a run, or both teams could get hot or cold at the same time in ways that nobody can predict.

The trajectory over the last month has been unmistakably in the Phillies’ favor and the combination of their own surge, Atlanta’s injuries, and the schedule disparity heading into the All-Star break creates a realistic path to being within two or three games of first place by August.

Anyways, gimmie that Wild Card

Here’s where I circle back to my original point because even if the Phillies close the gap on Atlanta and make the NL East a genuine race in September, I still think the Wild Card is the better path to a championship for this specific team.

Winning the division sounds great on paper and the home-field advantage is nice, but what the Phillies actually need heading into October is momentum and sharpness from playing meaningful games every night through August and September instead of clinching early and going through the motions while the Wild Card teams sharpen their edge.

Imagine playing any of these teams not named the Dodgers in the NLDS

The last two Octobers proved that owning the NL East doesn’t mean anything when the team shows up flat for the postseason because a division title and a “practice game” in the Wild Card round that this fanbase is supposed to pretend matters while gearing up for Red October isn’t worth more than a team that fought its way into the playoffs with urgency and hunger and the kind of edge that comes from knowing every game matters.

The Phillies have the starting pitching with Sanchez and Wheeler to win any short series against anyone in baseball. They have the power with Schwarber’s 29 homers and Harper locked in with the heavy bat.

They have the bullpen anchored by Duran when it’s performing at its best. The trade deadline could add another bat, a bullpen arm, and potentially a backend starter to round out the roster. All the pieces are either in place or within reach for a team that can make a deep October run if it enters the playoffs with the right momentum.

That momentum comes from fighting for a spot in September, not from clinching in August and coasting. Give me the Wild Card race, let the Phillies battle their way into October with something to play for every single night down the stretch, and let this team’s pitching and power carry it through the postseason with the kind of intensity that back-to-back division titles and early clinches never produced.

The Phillies are 42-36 with 6.5 games to make up and a schedule that gives them every opportunity to close the gap. Whether they catch Atlanta or ride the Wild Card into October, the only thing that matters is how this team is playing when the calendar flips to October.

Right now, they’re playing their best baseball of the season and the Braves are starting to crack, so that’s good, but let’s not pretend it matters in October.

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