A year ago, had the Philadelphia Phillies won 87 games, they would have narrowly missed the postseason and already started a months-long sulk toward spring training. The San Diego Padres, winners of 89 contests, would have earned the second of two wild-card spots, needing to take a one-game playoff to advance and face the best team in the National League. Their paths to the World Series would have been precarious or nonexistent, which can sometimes feel like the same thing.
Now, though, in the first year of Major League Baseball’s expanded playoff field, the Phillies and Padres will square off in the NL Championship Series. Each team is four wins from the World Series. The Phillies, the sixth of six seeds in the NL, swept the 93-win St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game set before upending the 101-win Atlanta Braves in four games in a best-of-five. The Padres, the fifth seed, edged the 101-win New York Mets in three before stunning the 111-win Los Angeles Dodgers in four.
Again, October baseball is showing no team can hide from parity that’s exhilarating for some and downright heartbreaking for others. Dominant regular seasons do not guarantee playoff success (hello, Dodgers). Neither does finishing 78-34 to edge the Mets in the NL East and grab a first-round bye (hello, Braves). And neither does anything but winning games when it matters most. The Phillies and Padres have done that.
Here is what to know about their NLCS matchup:
Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are living up to their megadeals (and then some). Remember the painfully slow-moving offseason of 2018-19, when Machado and Harper were the biggest names of a free agent class left in the cold? Machado eventually signed a 10-year, $300 million contract with the Padres in mid-February. At the end of that month, with spring training in full swing, Harper landed with the Phillies for 13 years and $330 million. Now they are the top-performing hitters on their respective underdogs, showing two cities what stars are worth. This is what clubs envision when they commit to cornerstone players long-term.
So far this postseason, Machado, an NL MVP candidate, has eight hits, two doubles, two homers and four walks. Harper, the reigning NL MVP, has 10 hits, three doubles, three homers and two walks. That’s exceptional production in seven games for Machado and six for Harper. And with the NLCS featuring a handful of front-line starters — Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler for Philadelphia; Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove for San Diego — one or two big hits could go a long way.
Harper’s numbers against the Padres in 2022 (including being hit in the thumb by Snell in June, a pitch that led to two months on the injured list): 1 for 9 in 10 plate appearances with three strikeouts.
Machado against the Phillies: 4 for 13 with no walks or extra-base hits.
Speaking of Machado and Harper, it has been quite the stretch for players picked atop the 2010 draft. The Washington Nationals selected Bryce Harper first. The Baltimore Orioles selected Machado third. Jameson Taillon, selected second by the Pittsburgh Pirates, was supposed to start Game 5 for the New York Yankees before it was postponed to Tuesday. The fourth pick? Shortstop Christian Colón, taken by the Kansas City Royals and not in the playoffs. Neither are the other six future all-stars who went in that first round: Drew Pomeranz, Matt Harvey, Yasmani Grandal, Chris Sale, Mike Foltynewicz and Christian Yelich.
And speaking of the Nationals, this week will be a pseudo reunion for a handful of former players and coaches. The Phillies have Harper, outfielder Kyle Schwarber, reliever Brad Hand and hitting coach Kevin Long, who was part of Washington’s World Series-winning staff in 2019. The Padres have Juan Soto and Josh Bell — having acquired them in a blockbuster trade in early August — plus reliever Craig Stammen and third base coach Matt Williams, who was the Nationals’ manager in 2014 and 2015.
The Padres were very good at catching and throwing the ball during the regular season. The Phillies were very much not. Sure, it makes sense, whenever Alec Bohm sprawls for a grounder or Nick Castellanos defies every defensive metric, for Philly fans to remind Keith Hernandez for saying he didn’t want to call Mets-Phillies games because “as far as fundamentally and defensively, the Phillies have always been just not up to it.” The Phillies are alive. The Mets, after a first-round exit, are watching the playoffs from the coziness of their homes. October is for many things, among them exposing old takes.
But the Phillies are in a far different defensive category than the Padres, who ranked among the best in various advance fielding stats heading into the postseason. Adding center fielder Brandon Marsh and infielder Edmundo Sosa — and starting rookie shortstop Bryson Stott after releasing Didi Gregorius — has improved Philadelphia’s defense up the middle, where it is no doubt most important. J.T. Realmuto, one of the sport’s best defensive catchers, helps, too. But if there’s a noticeable edge in this series, it might be right here, with the Phillies more likely to make a critical mistake behind the pitcher’s mound.