Craig covered Wednesday’s afternoon action. I have your evening contests.
The NL East has been really interesting this season. It didn’t figure to be that way. Most pre-season prognostications had the Nationals battling it out with the Mets for NL East supremacy while the Braves and Phillies would fight to stay out of the cellar. The Marlins would float somewhere in between, in intra-division purgatory.
The Phillies beat the Marlins today 4-2 to improve to 24-17, moving into a first-place tie with the Nationals. As MLB.com’s Richard Justice points out, the Phillies didn’t accrue 24 wins until their 71st game last season. As of this writing, only the 27-10 Cubs have more wins in the National League than the Phillies do. Even more surprisingly, if the Mets beat the Nationals this evening, the Phillies will move into a tie for first place in the division with all of the day’s games completed. Excepting their Opening Day win against the Rangers in 2014 and their Opening Day win against the Pirates in 2012, the Phillies haven’t been in first place since the end of the 2011 regular season. That’s quite a turnaround for a rebuilding club.
We talked recently about being skeptical of the Phillies’ success thus far. The offense is anemic and their run differential thoroughly in the red. Even GM Matt Klentak knows the numbers don’t portend this kind of success over the span of the entire season, but the city of Philadelphia deserves to feel good about something. The Phillies are on the up and up and get to pick first in the draft next month, adding to an already stacked minor league system. The 76ers got the first overall pick in last night’s draft lottery, which will propel their rebuilding process. The Eagles picked second in the draft, grabbing quarterback Carson Wentz. Philly fandom, especially lately, has mostly been about the lovable losers, but the hope is that one of the four major sports teams in town can build a lovable winner sooner rather than later.
The Mets will fight the Nationals on the Phillies’ behalf tonight at 7:10 PM EDT at Citi Field. Gio Gonzalez starts for the Nats and Bartolo Colon for the Mets.
The rest of Wednesday night’s action...
Atlanta Braves (Julio Teheran) @ Pittsburgh Pirates (Francisco Liriano), 7:05 PM EDT
Seattle Mariners (Taijuan Walker) @ Baltimore Orioles (Chris Tillman), 7:05 PM EDT
Tampa Bay Rays (Jake Odorizzi) @ Toronto Blue Jays (R.A. Dickey), 7:07 PM EDT
Cleveland Indians (Mike Clevinger) @ Cincinnati Reds (Brandon Finnegan), 7:10 PM EDT
Chicago Cubs (John Lackey) @ Milwaukee Brewers (Jimmy Nelson), 8:10 PM EDT
Houston Astros (Doug Fister) @ Chicago White Sox (Mat Latos), 8:10 PM EDT
Boston Red Sox (David Price) @ Kansas City Royals (Edinson Volquez), 8:15 PM EDT (Game Two)
Colorado Rockies (Chris Rusin) @ St. Louis Cardinals (Adam Wainwright), 8:15 PM EDT
New York Yankees (Nathan Eovaldi) @ Arizona Diamondbacks (Shelby Miller), 9:40 PM EDT
Los Angeles Dodgers (Mike Bolsinger) @ Los Angeles Angels (Nick Tropeano), 10:05 PM EDT
San Francisco Giants (Johnny Cueto) @ San Diego Padres (Drew Pomeranz), 10:10 PM EDT
