The Philadelphia Phillies open a three-game set against the Miami Marlins on Monday at 6:40 p.m. ET, and Zack Wheeler gets the ball as the first pitch of the series arrives with both clubs moving in opposite directions. Tyler Phillips will start for Miami.
For the Phillies, the timing matters because they are still inside a Wild Card position and within 5.5 games of the Atlanta Braves in the NL East, a place few thought possible after a 9-19 start that led to Rob Thomson being fired. Since then, Don Mattingly has guided the club to a 48-30 run, and FanGraphs now gives Philadelphia a 19.4% chance to win the division, compared with a 16.2% chance to miss the playoffs.
Wheeler is central to why that turnaround has held together. He has thrown only 100 innings this season after missing the first month while recovering from shoulder surgery, but he still carries a 2.16 ERA in 16 starts and anchors a rotation that also includes Cristopher Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo. Philadelphia has won with pitching more than offense, and that is plain in the numbers: the club ranks 23rd in OPS for the season even as Jhoan Duran has been spectacular and Orion Kerkering and Jonathan Bowlan have been reliable at the back end.
Miami’s story is harsher. At the All-Star break, the Marlins had 51.5% playoff chances. Twelve straight losses later, that number has fallen to 7.7%, and the club’s offense and bullpen have both buckled at the wrong time. The Marlins rank 10th in OPS for the season, Otto Lopez leads MLB in hits, doubles and batting average, but since the break the offense has been baseball’s third-worst. Jakob Marsee has only four total hits across the losing streak, and Pete Fairbanks, Lake Bachar and Calvin Faucher have all blown leads in the last week and a half while Miami’s relievers have posted a 6.54 ERA across the first nine games of the second half.
That split leaves Monday’s opener carrying more than the usual weight of a series start. The Phillies need a back-end starter and a left-handed reliever before the trade deadline, and the Marlins now look likely to reset there, with Sandy Alcantara potentially back on the block after winning the 2023 NL Cy Young Award. The next 48 hours will show whether Philadelphia keeps stacking wins behind Wheeler or whether Miami can stop a collapse that has already turned a once-promising season into a race against the deadline itself.
