On paper, it’s harder to find a better opening-round opponent for the Atlanta Braves than the Philadelphia Phillies.
Philadelphia has been one of the worst offenses in baseball in September, finishing the final month of the regular season with the fewest home runs (17), the 2nd-lowest OPS (.660), and the 2nd-fewest runs scored (89 in 24 games, roughly 3.7 a game).
And truth be told, they struggled for a lot of the regular season, finishing 88-74 and never seizing their opportunities to mount a serious challenge to the Braves for the NL East crown.
Part of the reason the Braves coasted to a title is Philadelphia’s futility against Atlanta this season, going just 4-9 and being outscored by 23 runs. How did the Braves so thoroughly take down Philly in the regular season, and is it translatable to October?
Let’s talk about it.
Forget 9-4. Look at 4-3
The Braves had a home-and-home with Philly back in April, to borrow college football terminology, and handled their business, going 5-1 in the two matchups. They swept Philly at Citizens Bank Park and then won the rematch at Truist Park, outscoring Philadelphia by 16 runs across the two weekends.
But for several reasons, that was a different Braves team that beat a different Philadelphia team back in April. Their manager is different, with Rob Thomson being fired just after that series loss in Truist. Their lineup is different, having acquired multi-time batting title winner Luis Arraez at the trade deadline. And their pitching staff is different, with Andrew Painter and Aaron Nola pitching much better of late than they were in April.
The 9-4 record says Atlanta controlled the season series. The seven September games tell a more useful story: the Braves went 4-3, routinely struggled with Philadelphia’s starting pitching and repeatedly won once the game became a battle of bullpens. Take out Atlanta’s 12-run explosion in a bullpen game victory on September 12th, and this was a collection of knife fights that Atlanta survived more than won.
Drilling down into those two series can give us a set of takeaways, both good and bad, to get a better idea of what they did that is transferable to October…as well as how Philly could change the outcome in the postseason.
Because the formula Atlanta used in September was a lot less dominant than that 9-4 record suggests.
The bad news: Philadelphia’s starters mostly won
Across the seven September games, Philly’s starters (and Tim Mayza working as an opener on September 12th) combined for a 1.70 ERA across 42 and a third innings.
| Date | PHI starter/opener | IP | Runs |
|----------|--------------------|----|---|
| Sept. 4 | Cristopher Sánchez | 6 | 3 |
| Sept. 5 | Zack Wheeler | 6 | 1 |
| Sept. 6 | Aaron Nola | 7 | 1 |
| Sept. 7 | Jesús Luzardo | 9 | 0 |
| Sept. 11 | Aaron Nola | 6⅓ | 2 |
| Sept. 12 | Tim Mayza* | 3 | 0 |
| Sept. 13 | Andrew Painter | 5 | 1 |
| **Total**| | 42⅓| 8 |That’s not a minor weakness; it’s a glaring red flag.
All of the potential frontline starters Philly might want to throw this week seemed to more than handle Atlanta.
And Andrew Painter wasn’t particularly sharp in his September 13th outing, allowing four walks and six hits in five innings, but the Braves still managed just one run against him.
Part of the problem is Atlanta’s inability to cash in their run-scoring chances against some of those starters.
Painter’s Sept. 13 line is the glaring example. Atlanta had 10 baserunners in five innings against him, coming on six hits and four walks, and scored just one run.
Against Wheeler on Sept. 5, Atlanta got traffic early but came away with essentially nothing, and Wheeler settled in for six innings of one-run baseball with nine strikeouts.
That tells me Atlanta doesn’t necessarily need to dominate Philadelphia’s starter.
It needs to convert the run-scoring opportunities.
In a three-game series, a bases-loaded inning against Sánchez/Nola/Luzardo/Painter that ends with zero isn’t just frustrating. It may be the only vulnerable inning that pitcher gives you the entire series.
You’ve gotta capitalize on every chance to score runs in the postseason.
And Luzardo showed the danger if you can’t do that in a best-of-three. Waiting out the starter worked in September because there was eventually a bullpen to attack. But what happens if there’s no bullpen to take advantage of behind door number two?
If the Braves spent six innings losing counts and waiting for a vulnerable middle reliever, the aggressive nature of playoff baseball may just…never give them that reliever.
The Braves survived long enough to change the matchup
Braves starters in the seven September games threw 39⅔ innings, allowing 12 earned runs. That’s a 2.72 ERA.
And there’s one outlier game that’s causing a lot of that damage: Martín Pérez’s four-run clunker on September 5th, where he went just three and two-thirds.
The formula wasn’t a dominant outing by a Braves starter, followed by an easy bullpen close. Instead, it was:
Starter keeps Atlanta within a swing or two → Braves eventually reach the vulnerable portion of Philadelphia’s staff → Atlanta’s bullpen has to preserve whatever advantage appears.
Atlanta’s September 6th win was a perfect example of this. Nola allowed one run in seven innings. Atlanta trailed 4-1 after Dylan Dodd surrendered consecutive solo homers. Then Acuña tied it in the eighth, Riley put Atlanta ahead in the ninth, and Iglesias protected a one-run lead despite Philadelphia getting the tying run to third.
Sept. 11 is the more chaotic version. Sale gave seven innings, and then Atlanta answered Philadelphia in the ninth, 10th and 11th. MLB’s recap notes the Braves bullpen didn’t allow an earned run over four innings, even though the automatic runner produced actual runs in extras.
And Sept. 4 is the clean version: Sale six innings/two runs, then Fuentes and Iglesias shut Philadelphia down. The Phillies went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
And here’s some cherry-picking for you.
Remove the September 13th seven-run eighth-inning catastrophe from the Braves bullpen, and Atlanta’s relievers allowed only six runs in 18⅓ innings across the other six September meetings.
The problem here is that you can’t just ignore that, as a 2-2 game became 9-2 in the span of a single inning despite the Braves going to Dylan Lee and Victor Mederos.
Atlanta generally had the bullpen advantage. Sept. 13 demonstrated how quickly the entire formula collapses if it doesn’t.
Don’t give Philly free traffic
One of the big things that stands out across the September matchups as being key for Atlanta’s starters is that, outside of the one Perez start, they made Philly earn their baserunners.
Against a lineup where Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper can not only create a run all by themselves, but cash in any ducks left on the pond, making them earn it is key.
Tyler Mahle’s September 12th start was basically the platonic ideal of this in action: He went seven innings with just one earned run allowed on six hits and no walks.
The one earned run? A Bryce Harper solo homer. No one was on base, and we know Schwarber and Harper will find ways to get theirs. Braves still won, 12-2.
Holmes went six scoreless Sept. 7 and Philadelphia managed only four hits all afternoon; Schwarber eventually won the game 1-0 with a solo homer off Didier Fuentes.
The repeatable concept here:
Make Philadelphia beat you one hitter at a time.
If Schwarber hits a solo homer, live with it.
What killed Atlanta in that Sept. 13 blowout wasn’t one star taking a great swing. It was Philadelphia stacking baserunner after baserunner until Bohm, Stott, Realmuto, Schwarber and Turner had all contributed to a seven-run inning.
Then Atlanta attacked the bullpen
Atlanta scored 34 runs in those seven games, though, since they hung 26 on the board after the starting pitcher/opener left the game. In the four September wins alone, Atlanta scored 22 of its 28 runs after Philadelphia’s starter/opener was gone.
And this wasn’t some sort of outlier 20-run game skewing the run differential, either:
Sept. 4: Sánchez allows three; Mauricio Dubón adds a two-run homer off Orion Kerkering in the eighth.
Sept. 6: Nola allows one in seven innings. Atlanta then scores four in the eighth and ninth, including Acuña’s three-run homer off Alex McFarlane and Riley’s go-ahead triple off Jhoan Duran.
Sept. 11: Nola gives up two. Atlanta keeps coming back against the bullpen in the ninth, 10th and 11th before Baldwin walks it off.
Sept. 12: Mayza throws three scoreless as the opener. Atlanta scores all 12 runs after he leaves, including eight in the fourth.
And lest you worry that this was some sort of momentary blip in an otherwise strong September for Philly’s bullpen… nope, they’ve been that bad against everyone. Their 5.23 September ERA is 27th in MLB, and they have put up a 5.54 over the past two weeks. Orion Kerkering, who has allowed four runs (three earned) in 5.2 innings against Atlanta this year with twice as many walks (six) as strikeouts (three), was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley after putting up an 18.69 this month.
And it’s not just the soft underbelly of Philly’s bullpen that Atlanta exposed. They hung a loss on closer Jhoan Duran’s neck on September 6th, tagging him for a double and an RBI triple in the 9th inning of a tie game before Raisel Iglesias shut down the bottom of the order in the bottom half for a win.
Atlanta has repeatedly demonstrated that falling behind Philadelphia’s starter doesn’t end the game, because the innings that follow have been dramatically more favorable.
And that knowledge and confidence that they’ve done this before - having the muscle memory of the comeback - can help inform in-game strategy. Don’t start expanding against Nola in the 5th because you’re down 2-0. Keep forcing pitches to get him out of the game, because the matchup may change radically once he leaves.
Now, the obvious counterargument we alluded to above is still out there: A postseason bullpen is not the regular-season bullpen. Interim manager Don Mattingly doesn’t have to use every middle reliever who got torched on September 12th. He can shorten the staff, lean harder on Duran and whoever else makes the roster, and potentially use starters in relief.
It’s not “Atlanta just needs to get to the bullpen” this week, no.
It’s “Atlanta needs to force Philadelphia to use more of its bullpen than it wants to.”
Subtle but important distinction there.
The postseason lets Philadelphia cheat the formula
This isn’t Sept. 12, when five relievers had to absorb five innings. Mattingly can concentrate appearances among his most trusted arms.
Although, hilariously, Philadelphia’s scramble just to make the postseason has made No. 2 less of an advantage than it normally would be, because Wheeler threw 97 pitches on Sunday, Nola was used on short rest Saturday and Luzardo had to pitch Sunday after returning from the IL. Philadelphia went into the final weekend specifically trying to avoid a bullpen game because of how poorly that unit had pitched.
Philly went from comfortably being able to set Sánchez/Wheeler/Nola as their starters for a three-game set, relegating Luzardo and Painter’s high-octane stuff to bullpen roles, to evaluating and considering everything possible to piece together at least two starts.
“The Phillies are working through their pitching situation for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series,” wrote Phillies beat writer Matt Gelb on Sunday night. “It could be some combination that involves a cast of Jesús Luzardo, Andrew Painter and others.”
They may be forced to scramble and go with whoever can give them anything that night. Normally, October would make Atlanta’s regular-season formula harder to reproduce. Philadelphia’s chaotic final weekend may have made it unusually possible.
Can survival work for three games?
Atlanta’s repeatable formula against Philadelphia wasn’t dominance. It was survival: keep the game close while the starter is on the mound, force the Phillies to expose their bullpen, then trust your own relievers to win the race from the other side.
It worked often enough to win four of seven in September and nine of 13 overall.
But October compresses everything. There are fewer expendable relievers, fewer chances to recover from a wasted scoring opportunity, and fewer innings to wait for the matchup to turn.
In a short series, with higher stakes that require using the best of the best in almost every moment, can the Braves still find and exploit those cracks in Philly’s foundation?