Braves and Phillies<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhat to know about the Phillies<\/p>\n
Philadelphia held a 6.5-game lead over Arizona for the third NL wildcard spot on Sept. 1. A colossal tailspin followed and the Phillies lost 10 straight games to blow the NL pennant with 12 games left in the season.<\/p>\n
But Philadelphia survived the late-season scare from the surging Arizona Diamondbacks to clinch a fifth straight postseason appearance, a feat that remained into doubt until the 162nd game of the season on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia’s starting rotation has been a strength this season, but they may be without an appearance in the wildcard round from Zack Wheeler, who pitched against Tampa Bay on Sunday. Jes\u00fas Luzardo and Cristopher S\u00e1nchez are in play for Games 1 and 2 with Andrew Painter or Aaron Nola in line for a Game 3 start, if necessary.<\/p>\n
The Phillies were 9-19 when they fired popular manager Rob Thomson in April after he led the Phillies to four straight playoff appearances, including the 2022 World Series, and consecutive NL East titles.<\/p>\n
Interim manager Don Mattingly, hired in the offseason as bench coach, is back in the playoffs a season after he was on the staff of a Toronto team that lost the World Series in seven games to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’s tasked with leading the franchise to its first championship since 2008, the second year of a five-year playoff stretch for the Phillies.<\/p>\n
Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber provide the offensive punch for the Phillies.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers were 4-2 against Philadelphia this season.<\/p>\n
What to know about the Braves<\/p>\n
NL East champion Atlanta won the season series 9-4 and finished six games ahead of second-place Philadelphia. Their 94 wins marked an 18-win improvement over last season’s dismal fourth-place finish.<\/p>\n
Atlanta posted a 5-1 season record against the Dodgers with LA’s only victory coming way back in early May. The Braves swept an August series against the Dodgers with three one-run wins.<\/p>\n
The Braves likely wont’ face the elite Wheeler in the wildcard matchup and will have a fresh Chris Sale available to start Game 1. The All-Star lefty finished the season with a 2.16 ERA in 27 starts. He’ll be making his first postseason appearance since 2021 and first with the Braves.<\/p>\n
Tyler Mahle was acquired at the trade deadline, providing a reliable No. 2 in the rotation.<\/p>\n
The Braves, who have been regulars in the playoffs, boast a lineup that features Matt Olson, Michael Harris II, Ronald Acuna Jr., Drake Baldwin and Ozzie Albies.<\/p>\n
The veteran Phillies stumbled down the stretch and squeezed into the playoffs on the last day of the regular season. With a lineup that includes , and one of the best starting rotations in the game, it wouldn’t be shocking for them to make a run in October.<\/p>\n
Wildcard schedule<\/p>\n
Game 1: Tuesday, 11 a.m. on NBC\/Peacock
Game 2: Wednesday, 11 a.m. on NBC\/Peacock
Game 3 (if necessary): Thursday on NBC\/Peacock\/NBCSN<\/p>\n
What is the MLB playoff format?<\/p>\n
There are 12 teams that qualify for MLB\u2019s postseason, including six teams from both the AL and NL. The three division winners in each league get seeds No. 1 through No. 3, ranked by win-loss record. Then the three wild-card teams get seeds No. 4 through No. 6, also ranked by win-loss record.<\/p>\n
The top two teams with the best record in both the AL and NL automatically advance to the Division Series. The other eight teams play in the Wild Card Series, which is a best-of-three format beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 29. In both the AL and NL, the No. 6 seed will travel to face the No. 3 seed while the No. 5 seed goes to No. 4. The higher seed hosts all three games.<\/p>\n
The winners then advance to the best-of-five Division Series, followed by the best-of-seven League Championship Series and a best-of-seven World Series between the winners of the AL and NL.<\/p>\n
What is the MLB postseason schedule?<\/p>\n
Wild Card Series: Sept. 29-Oct. 1 (NBC\/Peacock)
Division Series: Oct. 3-10 (AL on TBS, NL on FOX\/FS1)
Championship Series: Oct. 11-20 (AL on TBS, NL on FOX\/FS1)
World Series: Oct. 23-31 (FOX)<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One team stumbled into the playoffs and barely made the postseason. The other is a division rival that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[426,48,52,51,47,53,50,49,1334],"class_list":["post-478511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-dodgers","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mlb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}