Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, and Freddie Freeman were vital contributors to the Braves when they won the 2021 World Series after getting as far as Game 7 of the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers the year before. Half a decade later, all three remain lineup staples — the first two in Atlanta, the third in Los Angeles — but as the postseason approaches, they rate as significant concerns for their respective teams. Though neither Albies nor Riley has turned 30 yet, both have not only had disappointing seasons, they appear to be multiple years into their decline phases, held in place by a combination of loyalty, track record, and long-term extensions. Freeman is 36 years old and a future Hall of Famer nearing the end of his 10th All-Star season, but while he would seem to be on firmer footing, he’s been dealing with a power outage that has coincided with a bout of patellar tendinitis in his right knee. He’s played through it at a time when the Dodgers have dealt with bigger injury concerns, though at least he’s got a first-round bye to help him recover for a few days.

Earlier this week, I went around the diamond to identify the most notable vulnerabilities in the lineups of teams still contending for playoff spots in the American League — a companion of sorts to my annual pre-deadline Replacement Level Killers series, albeit among a more limited field. For the National League, that means the Brewers, Dodgers, Braves, Cubs, and Padres, all of whom have clinched spots (the last two of those on Thursday), plus the Phillies and Diamondbacks. Arizona trails Philadelphia by two games with three to play and has Playoff Odds of just 11.1% before accounting for the complicated and unresolved tiebreaker scenario involving those two teams.

While full-season performances play a significant part in these selections, I’m more concerned with who’s worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Each position has a headliner (or two, if it’s a job share), but at several positions, I’ve noted other teams with concerns, particularly injury-related ones. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees had to make do without Aaron Judge for all of June, July and August due to a stress fracture in his right first rib. With the days on the calendar dwindling and the AL East title still in play — which is no longer the case after the Rays clinched on Tuesday night — Judge bypassed a rehab assignment, but once he returned, he played in just seven games before landing back on the injured list due to a right calf strain. Both the slugger and the team took great pains to avoid discussing the injury’s specificity and timeline for recovery until Tuesday, when manager Aaron Boone revealed that Judge has a “moderate grade” strain, received a platelet-poor plasma injection, and isn’t expected to be available for the team’s Wild Card Series rematch against the Red Sox.

While deadline acquisition Heliot Ramos has heated up after a very slow start to his pinstriped career, the Yankees’ right field situation is one of the more glaring potential trouble spots among American League contenders. As the playoffs approach, teams no longer have a chance to upgrade from outside their organizations and instead must make do with the talent on hand. What follows here is a look at the most vulnerable teams at each position — something of a companion to my annual pre-deadline Replacement Level Killers series, with a focus on the teams that still have a chance to make the playoffs. For the AL, that means the Rays, Yankees, and Red Sox — all of whom have clinched spots — plus the Guardians, White Sox, Rangers, and Astros, who are battling for the other two division titles and the third Wild Card spot. I’ve taken the Blue Jays out of consideration, as their Playoff Odds now start with a zero in front of the decimal. While full-season performances play a significant part here, I’m more concerned with who’s worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Each position has a headliner (or two, if it’s a job share), but at several positions, I’ve noted other teams with concerns. A companion National League piece will follow. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Welcome to my final chat of the regular season.

12:02

Jay Jaffe: The playoff picture is still unsettled. Yesterday I dove into the remaining possibility of tiebreaker scenarios https://blogs.fangraphs.com/untying-the-tiebreaker-scenarios-one-more-…

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Alas, we won’t get tiebreaker games because of the Fun Police at MLB headquarters

12:03

Jay Jaffe: On Friday I checked in on Elly De La Cruz’s big season https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-red-hot-elly-de-la-cruz/, and earlier last week I wrote about Pete Alonso’s return to Citi Field https://blogs.fangraphs.com/pete-alonsos-return-to-citi-field-turns-me…

12:05

Jay Jaffe: I’m working on something on the weakest spots on the remaining contenders. Aaron Judge was already in my lede due to the uncertainty regarding his calf strain, and now we’ve learned that he received a PPP injection https://bsky.app/profile/chelseajanes.bsky.social/post/3mw4kutow4s2a

Read the rest of this entry »

With one week to go in the regular season, the playoff field is nearly set in the National League, though it’s anything but settled in the American League, with two of the three division leaders — two different ones since I last checked in — ahead by just one game and those races spilling over into the battle for the third and final Wild Card spot. We’re not going to get any tiebreaker games due to the fun police and the playoff format change put into effect by the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement, but it’s entirely possible a playoff spot — and perhaps even a division title — will be decided on the basis of MLB’s tiebreaker procedures.

Since the situation is simpler in the NL, I’ll start there. The Brewers (98-58) lead the Dodgers (96-60) in the race for the top seed, and own the tiebreaker there on the basis of a 4-3 season series advantage. According to our Playoff Odds, as of Monday at 9 AM, the Braves (92-64) have just a 0.9% chance of bypassing either Milwaukee or Los Angeles. The Brewers — who have a magic number of one to clinch a first-round bye — finish out with a visit to the Phillies (86-70) before coming home to face the Cardinals (76-80), while the Dodgers host the Padres (87-69) for three and then travel to the Giants (62-90), with the Braves hosting the Reds (72-84) and then visiting the Marlins (76-80).

The Padres have taken advantage of a soft spot in their schedule — series against the sub-.500 Nationals, Giants, Rockies, and Marlins, after taking two out of three from the Yankees — to win 13 out of their last 14 games. Not only did that push them past the Diamondbacks (now 82-74), whom they trailed by half a game before the start of the surge, but they’ve tied the Cubs (87-69) for the top NL Wild Card spot, with the Phillies a game behind them. The Phils have been phlailing lately, going 8-10 in September and failing to win a series since beating the Diamondbacks at the start of the month. Their slide gave the Braves enough room to clinch the NL East title on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

The Reds dropped six out of seven games to the Dodgers this season, all within the last two weeks, but Elly De La Cruz no doubt left an impression both on them and the rest of baseball. The 24-year-old shortstop homered in five of those seven games while lighting up Statcast and assembling some eye-opening highlight clips. Although the Reds have regressed after making the playoffs last year, De La Cruz is putting the finishing touches on his best offensive campaign — and he still has a reasonable chance at his first 30-homer, 30-steal season.

Coming as they have while the Reds play out the string of a disappointing season, De La Cruz’s recent feats at the plate and in the field admittedly have a bit of a Tungsten Arm O’Doyle feel. After claiming the third NL Wild Card spot last year with an 83-79 record — the Reds’ first postseason berth in a full season since 2013 — they’ve slipped to 71-82, including 12-20 since August 15, the second-worst record in the NL during that span. But it’s hardly De La Cruz’s fault that Hunter Greene made just five starts before undergoing Tommy John surgery, that starters Nick Lodolo, Rhett Lowder, and Brady Singer are all sporting ERAs well over 5.00, or that TJ Friedl, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Noelvi Marte, and Matt McLain have combined for nearly 1,200 plate appearances and a 49 wRC+.

Against that dismal backdrop, De La Cruz has still kept the Reds worth watching, if only to see what the switch-hitting 6-foot-6 marvel might do next. From September 5–9, he homered in five straight games, the first two coming against the Brewers at Great American Ballpark and the last three at Dodger Stadium. The Brewers broke De La Cruz’s streak, holding him homerless during last weekend’s three-game series in Milwaukee, but he was back at it with homers against the Dodgers in Cincinnati on Monday and Wednesday. Unfortunately, twice during that stretch (September 9 and 14, both against the Dodgers), his homer provided the Reds with their only run of the game. Here are the dingers from the five-game streak:

That streak placed De La Cruz in the company of White Sox rookies Munetaka Murakami (April 17–22) and Tristan Peters (August 22–26), Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson (April 22–26), and Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber (May 7-12), all of whom homered in five straight games this season as well, with the Rays’ Junior Caminero going yard in six straight games (June 25–July 1). De La Cruz’s streak tied one by Eugenio Suárez from 2018 (July 23–27) as the second longest by a Red in the last 10 seasons, with the longest a seven-gamer belonging to Joey Votto in 2021 (July 24–31), one short of the major league record shared by Dale Long, Don Mattingly, and Ken Griffey Jr.

Beyond the volume of De La Cruz’s homers was their emphatic nature. Six of them had exit velocities of 106 mph or higher, with his solo shot off Evan Phillips of the Dodgers on Monday leading the pack at 114.1 mph, followed by a 112.1-mph solo home run off the Brewers’ Dustin May on September 5. His two-run homer off Tarik Skubal on September 8 had an estimated distance of 444 feet, making it both this season’s longest at Dodger Stadium and also the longest surrendered by the two-time reigning Cy Young winner. The clout off Phillips was estimated at 457 feet, making it the longest hit at Great American this year — it actually left the ballpark after bouncing on the concourse — as well as De La Cruz’s longest since September 26, 2023 (a career-best 467-footer).

De La Cruz’s recent hot streak has been about more than just home runs. Before going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts against the Dodgers on Thursday afternoon, he had reached base in 23 consecutive games dating back to August 22, matching the longest streak of his career, from April 9 to May 4 of last season. Over the course of this year’s streak, he hit .424/.480/.793 with eight home runs, four stolen bases, a 242 wRC+ (tops in the majors over that span, two points higher than that of Rafael Devers), and 2.4 WAR (also tops, 0.3 WAR ahead of an MVP-bound Pete Crow-Armstrong). During that stretch, De La Cruz’s batted balls averaged a sizzling 99.6 mph in exit velocity, with a 29.7% barrel rate and a 67.2% hard-hit rate.

On the other side of the ball, De La Cruz also uncorked the hardest throw for an assist by an infielder in the Statcast era, a 102-mph relay that nabbed the Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández at the plate as he tried for an inside-the-park home run on September 9. That was the same night De La Cruz homered off Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Though the velocity on that throw was revised downward upon review, from an initial report of 105.3 mph, it was still 2.2 mph faster than the previous high — which was set by De La Cruz on July 20, 2023 (a relay throw to catch the Giants’ Wilmer Flores at the plate), and matched on August 8 of this season (yet another relay, this one to nail the Nationals’ Nasim Nuñez trying to score). In fact, according to MLB.com’s David Adler, De La Cruz owns the five fastest infielder assists in the Statcast era. The others are also on relays to the plate, with this 99.7-mph one from August 27, 2023 (cutting down the Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll trying to complete an inside-the-park homer) and this 99.2-mph one from August 19 this season (extinguishing a none-too-swift Blaze Jordan trying to score) rounding out the top five.

Overall, including Thursday’s 0-fer, De La Cruz is hitting .284/.362/.517 for a 138 wRC+. All of those numbers represent career highs, with his slugging percentage ranking sixth in the league and his wRC+ seventh. Thanks in large part to his on-base streak, his 6.0 WAR ranks second among NL position players behind PCA; he’s still 0.7 behind the combined pitching and offense total for Shohei Ohtani, but could close the gap during the two-way superstar’s stint on the injured list. De La Cruz also remains 0.8 WAR shy of his own career high, set in 2024, but he played 160 games that year, whereas he’s totaled 134 this year, having missed three weeks in June due to a right hamstring strain. He would max out at 143 games if he plays all nine remaining on the Reds’ schedule.

De La Cruz has reason to do just that. While his 28 homers already represents a career high, he’s just two away from reaching 30, and needs four stolen bases to get to 30 in that category as well. He’s not running as often — or as fast — as he used to. In 2024, De La Cruz led the NL with 67 steals (in 83 attempts) with 100th-percentile sprint speed, but this year he’s stolen just 26 in 34 attempts, including only four in August and two in September, with 80th-percentile sprint speed; it’s understandable if he’s not as willing to test his hamstring. If he does reach 30 in both categories, he would join PCA (44 homers, 37 steals) and likely CJ Abrams, who currently has 30 homers and 29 steals, in this year’s club.

The switch-hitting De La Cruz’s big step forward has been driven by significant improvement in his production against left-handed pitching. He’s made adjustments to his right-handed swing that have brought it more in line with his left-handed one, and gained substantial bat speed from both sides of the plate that have resulted in much better contact. Some of this was documented earlier this season, here by Ryan Blake, at MLB.com by Jared Greenspan, and elsewhere, though not everything that was true when they checked in still holds.

Though he’s a natural right-hander based upon both his throws and his self-description, De La Cruz’s production against lefties lagged before this season, as both Blake and Greenspan pointed out. Updating the numbers:

From 2023–25, De La Cruz hit .271/.351/.497 for a 128 wRC+ against righties, placing him the 83rd percentile among lefties with at least 300 plate appearances in that context. Meanwhile, he hit just .220/.278/.329 for a 66 wRC+ against lefties, landing him in the third percentile among righties with at least 300 plate appearances in that context. With more than twice as many plate appearances against righties, he was still above average overall, with a 109 wRC+ during that span, but the split was jarring; that’s the kind of production that gets lefties benched against same-side pitching.

This year is a different story, as De La Cruz has has improved his wRC+ by 112 points against lefties. If that sounds like a lot, it is. Our Splits Leaderboard data only goes back to 2002, but of the 2,615 player-seasons in which a right-handed batter took at least 100 plate appearances against lefties in back-to-back seasons, it’s the 16th-largest gain, placing him well inside the 99th percentile. The largest gain was made by switch-hitting Orioles catcher Matt Wieters, who jumped from a 44 wRC+ in 127 plate appearances against lefties in 2010 to a 201 wRC+ in 142 plate appearances against them in ’11. The median wRC+ within the top 20 was 58 in year one and 172 in year two; qualitatively, that looks like a turn from total incompetence to total mastery, but a lot of fluky things can happen from year to year over the course of 100 or 150 plate appearances, and figuring out the whys of all those big gains, and the extent to which they were maintained, is outside the scope of this piece. For De La Cruz, at least, the improvement is founded in much better contact:

De La Cruz’s average exit velocity against lefties has jumped 7.4 mph from 2025, with his barrel rate nearly tripling, his hard-hit rate increasing by almost 20 percentage points, and his expected slugging percentage surging by almost 130 points. What’s more, his actual production from that side has exceeded his expected numbers by a fair bit. He’s not only producing his highest pulled-air rate of his career from that side (though a comparatively low one in the grand scheme), he’s also poked five homers to right (opposite field) from among 24 batted balls, for a 1.435 slugging and an .806 xSLG; in three previous seasons, he had just one such home run.

Meanwhile, De Le Cruz’s average exit velo against righties has improved by 2.3 mph, with his barrel and hard-hit rates and xSLG jumping as well, but not by as much as from the other side. He’s underperforming those numbers, in part because of that very low pulled-air rate, but it’s still very good production from that side.

Underlying those higher exit velocities are better swing decisions and improved bat speed from both sides. On the former front, he’s cut his chase rate from 28.5% to a career-low 25.8%, with his swing rate falling from a career-high 45.6% to a career-low 40.9%. As for the latter front:

I ditched the small-sample 2023 data, when he was swinging even faster, but here you can see that relative to the last season, De La Cruz’s bat speed against lefties has improved by 2.3 mph, with his fast-swing rate against them increasing by 21 points and his squared-up and blast rates really jumping. Earlier in the season, he had shortened his right-handed swing relative to last year, but that no longer holds. From both sides of the plate, the position of his feet has varied so widely from month to month over that three-season stretch that I didn’t even try to get more granular, but he has closed up his stance on both sides relative to last season, and increased the distance between his feet. During this current tear, in September he’s averaged a 13-degree open stance with his feet 34.9 inches apart from the right side of the plate (versus lefties) and a 19-degree open stance with his feet 35.7 inches apart from the left side (versus righties).

The increased distance between his feet, or the season-to-season variation, owes to De La Cruz’s moving from a leg kick (2024) to a toe tap (2025), and back to an even bigger leg kick this year, with refined mechanics helping him to be more explosive and produce greater power. On MLB Network on Thursday, Yonder Alonso and Mark DeRosa broke down the slugger’s progression and the changes with video examples better than I can muster. This is four minutes from a segment that’s over nine minutes long.

The two former major leaguers disagree on some points, but as Alonso explains it, with the toe tap, De La Cruz’s swing was “two-step” and he was “a hair late” to the ball. The leg kick creates “a much better angle to the baseball and better bat speed,” and as shown near the end of this excerpt, his swings from both sides of the plate are much more similar than they were before.

As you can see from the table presented near the end of that excerpt, De La Cruz’s overall year-to-year increases in barrel rate and hard-hit rate are the largest in the majors, with his increased exit velocity the second largest. Including updated stats from Thursday, here are the top 10s for each of those:

In that context, De La Cruz’s improvements in those two rate stats particularly stand out. The distance between him and the second-ranked hitter is about the same as those between the second- and 10th-ranked hitters. The same is more or less true in terms of exit velocity, in that the distance between him and the third-ranked hitter is even greater than that between no. 3 and no. 10.

With his huge frame and exceptional speed, power, and arm, De La Cruz has always been one of the majors’ most compelling players to watch. As he’s refined his game, that’s become even more true — and to think, he’s just 24 years old. I can’t wait to see where these improvements take him.

On Tuesday night at Citi Field, the 2026 Mets season reached either a rather humiliating new low or a moment of catharsis, depending upon your point of view. With one out in the top of the ninth inning and the Mets clinging to a 3-2 lead over the Orioles, closer Kodai Senga left an 82.5-mph forkball over the plate, and Pete Alonso absolutely hit the fork out of it for a game-tying solo shot, the 300th home run of his career. The 31-year-old slugger punctuated the shot with an emphatic bat toss as the ball caromed off the face of the second deck in left-center field. While most opponent homers in such situations would elicit groans and boos, Alonso — who made his long-awaited return to Queens this week after signing a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles last December — instead received a standing ovation and made a curtain call.

Though unorthodox, the response from the crowd was understandable. Alonso hit 264 home runs during his seven seasons with the Mets, the most homers in franchise history, making five All-Star teams and two trips to the postseason while earning a spot in the hearts of fans as their beloved Polar Bear. Tuesday night’s game was just his second at Citi Field as a visitor, and as they’d done the night before, Mets fans brought their homemade cardboard signs displaying sentiments such as: “Thank You Pete — Forever a Met,” “Mets Fans Still Love Pete,” and “Should’ve Paid Pete.” The last of those also featured a Mets logo in front of the phrase “Fans Rooting For” before an Orioles logo.

Prior to Monday night’s first pitch, the Mets presented a tribute video, and shortstop Francisco Lindor joined the crowd of 35,880 in an ovation before Alonso’s first plate appearance. Alonso went 0-for-3 with a walk in Baltimore’s 2-1 win that night, a victory that officially eliminated the Mets from playoff contention. Tuesday’s homer, his 36th of the season, was his lone hit in five plate appearances, though it loomed large in an 11-inning, 7-5 win that sent the Mets to their 82nd loss, guaranteeing them their first sub-.500 season since 2023, before David Stearns took over as president of baseball operations.

In the wake of Alonso’s homer, the scene at Citi Field took a surreal turn, as chants of “Fire Stearns!” followed Alonso’s cameo, ringing out around the ballpark. The crowd — officially 28,097 but in actuality much more sparse, befitting a home team playing out the string — vented its anger and disappointment regarding Stearns’ offseason overhaul of the roster.

Pete Alonso grins as Mets fans chant “fire Stearns” after Alonso hit his 300th home run in his old ballpark pic.twitter.com/XbNLhDE7yn

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 16, 2026

Read the rest of this entry »

Cam Schlittler brought his A-game on Sunday. Facing the Mets in the rubber game of the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees’ fireballer was nearly untouchable over the course of six scoreless innings, striking out eight while allowing just one hit, a fifth-inning double by Brett Baty. Meanwhile in Baltimore, the Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease worked around five walks to allow just one run over five innings while striking out nine. The two righties are engaged in an intriguing race for the AL Cy Young Award, one that could go down to the wire. The NL race is a tight one as well, with the Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski the favorite but hardly the only one under consideration.

The 25-year-old Schlittler and 24-year-old Misiorowski are undeniably the frontrunners in their respective leagues, from both statistical and narrative standpoints. They lead in our Tom Tango-modeled Cy Young projections, and as of mid-August, they dominated polls taken by MLB.com. Nonetheless, the statistical races that can influence both our perceptions and voter behavior aren’t entirely decided, and with less than two weeks to go in the regular season, the races are worth a closer look.

The 6-foot-7 Misiorowski and 6-foot-6 Schlittler share similarities beyond their impressive heights. Both are in their first full major league seasons, after arriving in mid-2025 and helping their teams to the playoffs while showing poise beyond their years; this October, they’ll be seasoned postseason veterans. They’re the majors’ two hardest-throwing starters, with Misiorowski breaking velocity records all over the place. His average four-seam velocity — a mind-blowing 100.6 mph — not only leads the majors, but it’s also the fastest single-season velocity by a starter in the pitch-tracking era (from 2008 onward), hardly surprising given that he owns the (scrolling, scrolling, scrolling) 117 fastest pitches by a starter in pitch-tracking history — including a record-setting 105.5-mph heater to the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong on June 26 — and 353 of the 394 pitches of at least 102 mph thrown by a starter. Hunter Greene is the only other one in double digits (12). Schlittler merely ranks second among all starters this year, with an average velocity of 98.0 mph, which is still good for fifth in the pitch-tracking era. Read the rest of this entry »

12:00

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! After a couple weeks of scheduling conflicts, this chat is back, baby.

12:01

Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a piece in the editorial pipeline regarding the two leagues’ Cy Young races. The consensus points to Misiorowski and Schilttler, and the impressions may be locked in, but their statistical edges aren’t as clear-cut as you might think.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Last week, I wrote about the Teoscar Hernández revival (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-well-timed-teoscar-hernandez-revival/), the playoff picture (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/this-still-aint-team-entropy-but-both-leag…) and some AL East center fielder injuries (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-bad-weekend-for-al-east-center-fielders-…)

12:05

Jay Jaffe: The Red Sox have continued to deal with center field issues, with Eli White — who had done a decent job replacing Ceddanne Rafaela — landing on the IL with a right foot ligament injury

12:07

Jay Jaffe: (sorry, dealing with editorial queries)

Read the rest of this entry »

The first five months of Teoscar Hernández’s season were largely forgettable. The 33-year-old left fielder scuffled through the first seven weeks before catching fire during the second half of May, only to suffer a left hamstring strain that knocked him out for over a month. Upon returning, he was a major drag on the offense for the better part of two months. But lately, Hernández has been tearing the cover off the ball, rising to the occasion to help a banged-up Dodgers squad — one that just placed Shohei Ohtani on the injured list and called up top prospect Josue De Paula — reel off a season-high seven-game winning streak.

Hernández has hit safely in his last 10 games, from August 30 through September 9, batting .514/.595/.829 (285 wRC+) in 42 plate appearances, with two home runs and 14 RBI. On 28 batted balls during that stretch, he’s produced a 97.1-mph average exit velocity, a 25.0% barrel rate, and a 60.7% hard-hit rate, with a .441 xBA and a .786 xSLG. Fifteen of those 28 batted balls have been hit at least 100 mph; seven of them, all 108.7 mph or higher, rank among his nine hardest-hit balls all season, capped by a 112.6-mph screamer he hit for a three-run homer against the Reds’ Brandon Williamson on Monday night.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the passing of Labor Day, the 2026 regular season has less than three weeks remaining. While neither league’s playoff races are as turbulent as the AL Wild Card race appeared to be just a couple of weeks ago — to say nothing of the Before Times, when Major League Baseball used actual tiebreaker games instead of math to settle ties, and rooting for end-of-season chaos was a whole lot more fun — it’s time for a check-in to outline what’s at stake.

Right now, in four of the six division races — all but the NL Central and NL West, where the Brewers and Dodgers both have comfortable margins — the first-place team leads by four games or less. That said, the hill that the Phillies (81-64) have to climb to catch the Braves (85-60) is steeper than it appears, because Atlanta clinched the season series with a 5-4 win this past Sunday and owns a 7-3 advantage, with the two teams set to play their final three games starting on Friday at Truist Park. Thus, if the two teams finish the regular season tied, the Braves would be the division winner and the Phillies a Wild Card team. Philadelphia has to overtake Atlanta to claim the NL East flag, something our Playoff Odds suggest has just an 8.2% chance of happening. Read the rest of this entry »