🔔 It's Time To Turn It Back On

_{LAST GAME: BRAVES 4 - PHILLIES 1}

_{NEXT GAME: Phillies (Aaron Nola) vs. Cardinals (Zack Thompson)}

_{Today, 8:15 EDT | Apple TV, 94 WIP}

Good morning. The Phillies didn’t play yesterday, but they had themselves a nice little Thursday anyway. The Marlins, Diamondbacks and Reds each lost, bringing the Phillies another step closer to a postseason berth.

Yesterday’s results also serve an important reminder as you gather your thoughts after an exasperating week — all of these teams have issues. All of them waste opportunities. All of their fans are miserable, too.

Reds blown out in Detroit? Mets 11, Diamondbacks 1? You kidding me?

In the email today:

The Phillies will return to Busch Stadium tonight for the first time since putting “Baseball Heaven” through hell last October. They will look for a similar result to their convincing three-game sweep of the Cardinals last month at Citizens Bank Park. It was a dominant series in which the Phillies outscored the Cardinals 22-3.

While the Cardinals appeared totally checked out the last time in that series, they have actually played decent baseball lately. St. Louis is 9-5 over its last 14 games, including series wins over the Braves, Reds and Orioles. In other words, there is a world in which you spend the weekend cursing the Phillies as they play a 65-81 team. 😄

Here’s what I’m watching for this weekend:

• Aaron Nola: I mean, who else? In two September starts, Nola has pitched just a total of 9 innings while allowing 15 hits and 11 earned runs. Opponents have hit .366 with a 1.116 OPS against him in those two starts.

• Bryson Stott: His recent downtick in production has been overshadowed by some of the sizzle at the top of the order. Over his last 15 games, Stott is hitting .232 with a .648 OPS. After fading during last year’s postseason, it would be nice to see Stott turn things back on and finish a stellar season on a strong note.

• Ranger Suárez: He gets the ball tomorrow night in what feels like an important start. Suárez was sharp last weekend against Miami, but after battling both injury and inconsistency at different points this season, he now must stack some consistent outings before October.

Our take: In theory, the Phillies have the pitching advantage tonight with Nola going against Zack Thompson, but the Cardinals’ 25-year-old left-hander has been solid lately — and certainly better than Nola this month. After losing 5 of their last 7 games, the Phillies need to quickly refocus, especially with a trip to Atlanta on tap next week.

2)👨‍⚕️ I’m Going to Try to Make You Feel Better

Since the Phillies didn’t play yesterday, let’s take a moment ahead of the weekend to look around the wild card landscape.

See that red line, the one all the way up near 100% that sits on top of all the other lines? That line represents the Phillies’ current playoff odds. Those other lines? They represent all of the other teams that aren’t sitting near 100%.

I’ll echo here what I noted up above — none of these other teams in the race, if you can call it that, are particularly good.

I know nobody wants to read “everything is awesome” content after a bunch of miserable late-inning losses, but here is how the Phillies’ current postseason odds over at FanGraphs stack up with other teams in the hunt:

• Phillies: 97.1%

• Cubs: 81.2%

• Giants: 47.1%

• Diamondbacks: 31.1%

• Reds: 23.7%

• Marlins: 19.6%

Our take: I don’t put a ton of stock in playoff projections and postseason probability formulas in the spring or middle of the summer, but I think they have some value near the end of the season.

When every loss reveals five reasons a team just doesn’t have it while validating skepticism and negativity, it’s useful to take a step back and look at the overall situation.

3) 🗺 Tweet of the Day: The Only Way There

As you can see above, the only the way the Phillies end this thing on Broad Street is by being precisely 79-67 through 146 games. Did they want to lose all those games this week? No. It’s just how this thing works.

4) 📊 Poll: Aaron Nola’s Future

Have additional thoughts? Reply directly to this email to comment, and see if we include your response tomorrow.

…

Results from our last poll: How Will the Phillies Finish the Regular Season?

Look at this optimism!

Your replies…

“Cubs have a tougher schedule the rest of the way. I think the Phils hang on to that top spot by a few games. ”

“So tired of them doing this every single year. Why can't they have a decent/strong September??”

“Given their last 10 games are against the Mets/Pirates, it would take a collapse of EPIC proportions to not get the top spot....”

5) 🔗 Link Roundup:

• A shameless plug: I host a Phillies podcast with Anthony SanFilippo. If you haven’t heard it yet, check it out here. 🔌

• Speaking of Anthony, he took a dive into what the Phillies might do with Cristopher Sánchez. ❓

• Over at Phillies Nation, Tim Kelly takes a look at how Kyle Schwarber compares to Adam Dunn. 🆚

• Scott Lauber draws a comparison between 2023 Aaron Nola and 2009 Cole Hamels. 😬

• Jayson Stark writes about the Phillies wasting late homers at an epic pace. 🤦‍♂️

The newsletter today was written by: Bob Wankel (Follow on X)

Thanks for reading!