Gone Fishing: The Phillies Take on Marlins in Wild Card
In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea it takes the fisherman Santiago three days to haul in a massive Marlin. The Phillies are hoping that it takes only two.
On Tuesday night, the Phillies will take on the Marlins in the first game of the National League Wild Card Series. Unlike last year, the Phillies have home field advantage. Unlike last year, they’re favored to win. This time around, at least in the Wild Card round, the Phillies are the hunted and not the hunter. They are the reigning National League champions and frankly, would be treated as such if it weren’t for the prolific offense of the Atlanta Braves. That comparison is a discussion for another time–potentially this Saturday at the start of the NLDS.
The odds are stacked against Miami. They are down their two best pitchers, Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez. They have an underwhelming offense–26th in runs scored per game and 21st in home runs–all well below league average. They are headed into as hostile an environment a team can face in the postseason. They have a rookie head coach and only just snuck into the playoffs at the very last second. No one expects them to win.
Sound familiar?
For while the Phillies have undisputable advantages in offensive firepower and starting pitching, the Marlins have strengths of their own. They are a tough, gritty team that’s more than comfortable winning a tight game–they are 33-13 in one-run games, far and away the best in MLB. The Phillies are 29-24. With a run differential of -56, Miami has found a way to win through being self-reliant on pitching–they have 41 comeback wins and are 7-3 in extra-innings. They are homegrown and hungry, buoyed by a fanbase that saw a nearly 30% increase in attendance this season. They have nothing to lose and perhaps, most importantly, are not afraid of the Phillies–they won the season series against the Phillies 7-6, just as they have four out of the last five years. Four of their victories they won by just one run. Since 2019, the Marlins are 42-40 against the Phillies.
Despite losing their top two starting pitchers, Miami’s pitching is nothing to scoff at. It remains their greatest strength, and if they were to upset the Phillies, it’d likely be the reason why. Miami will start two lefties–Jesus Luzardo and Braxton Garett–in the first two games of the series. The Phillies have hit Garrett well. Luzardo they have not. Luzardo, who set the Marlins singe-season strikeout record last Thursday and finished fifth in MLB in K/9 rate, has gone 2-0 in two starts against the Phillies this year, striking out 14 in just 12 and one-third innings.
The Marlins also boast a quartet of lefties in the bullpen–a factor that will likely alter roster construction and could give the Phillies’ left-handed hitters fits. Their foursome of closer Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk, Andrew Nardi, and Steven Okert held left-handed batters to just a .198 batting average with 131 strikeouts and 32 walks this season. If the Phillies find themselves down late in the game, they could be in danger of letting the proverbial fish off the hook.
While the Marlins have a lot going for them, however, the Phillies have more. Strip away the home field advantage of Citizens Bank Park and what do you find? One of the best rosters in all of baseball. After an underwhelming and injury-plagued start to the season, the Phillies caught fire, going 42-31 since the All-Star Break. They have finished in the top 10 of nearly every offensive category and have six players with 20 or more home runs and two players with more than 100 RBIs. In an incredibly deep lineup, they are buoyed by their two surging superstars: Trea Turner, who sports a .344 average with 65 hits, 16 home runs, and 41 RBIs since receiving a standing ovation on August 4th and Bryce Harper, who has a 1.004 OPS and 18 home runs since July 15th. Both have the potential to lead the Phillies to the World Series with Harper coming off a record-setting postseason performance in 2022.
The Phillies also have their two best pitchers available in Zach Wheeler and Aaron Nola. Wheeler went 0-0 in four starts against Miami this year, with 17 strikeouts and four walks in 18 innings. While Nola has underwhelmed for most of the season and did not pitch well against the Marlins in 2023, he has found his footing in his last two starts and retains the potential for a postseason hot streak–he pitched 6.2 innings of no-run ball in last year’s Game 2 Wild Card win over the Cardinals.
Ultimately, the Wild Card round will not be decided by the pure talent that each roster has on paper. It’s baseball, after all, truly anything can happen. It’ll be up to the players and how they perform on two days out of a six-month long season. It’s for the Phillies to decide if at they end of the day, they bring back a skeleton like Santiago or the whole fish.
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