Phillies - Mets NLDS Begins Tomorrow

The Mets are riding some magic. Down to their final two outs and trailing 2-0 in Milwaukee Thursday night, Pete Alonso hit a massive three-run home run to send them to the NLDS.

But if there’s one team that’s familiar with the danger wild card teams can present in the postseason, it’s the Mets’ NLDS opponent: your Philadelphia Phillies. They shouldn’t get caught off-guard. The Phils are also the more talented team.

How will it all shake out? With games on Saturday and Sunday, we’ll have a pretty good sense of where the series is going by the time our next newsletter hits your inbox.

Buckle up. Red October, baby.

In the email today:

• ⚾ The Odd Phillies / Mets Rivalry

• 💰️ Do Whatever You Want with Your Phillies Tickets

• 🏈 Penn State Seeks 5-0 Start, Heavy Favorites vs. UCLA

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

The Phillies and Mets have a strange rivalry.

Most of the normal rivalry features are there: geographic proximity, familiarity, mutual disdain between fan bases, etc. But if you feel like there's something missing, you're right: the two franchises rarely field competitive squads at the same time.

The New York expansion team was established in 1962, but through 2023, the Phillies and Mets never topped 90 wins in the same season. They topped 85 wins in the same year just six times:

• 1976 (Phillies 101 wins, Mets 86 wins)

• 1986 (Phillies 86 wins, Mets 108 wins)

• 2006 (Phillies 86 wins, Mets 97 wins)

• 2007 (Phillies 89 wins, Mets 88 wins)

• 2008 (Phillies 92 wins, Mets 89 wins)

• 2022 (Phillies 87 wins, Mets 101 wins)

Moreover, even when both teams reached 85 Ws, one team was usually much better in the regular season than the other. Only in 2007 and 2008 did the teams truly battle for first place.

It's no surprise, then, that the Phillies winning the NL East on the last day of the 2007 season is the undisputed top moment in the rivalry's history. The Mets led the division by seven full games on September 12, but by the morning of September 30, the two teams were tied with 87 wins apiece. And by the time the Phillies took the field against the Nationals at Citizens Bank Park that afternoon, the Mets were trailing the Marlins by seven runs in the first inning of their game.

The atmosphere at Citizens Bank Park was electric from the jump. It only got wilder as the game went on and the Phillies built a lead. Yet, somehow, Jimmy Rollins took it to a whole new level when he smashed his 20th triple of the season in the sixth. The hit gave the '07 NL MVP a 20-20-20-20 season. And the Phillies, of course, went on to clinch the division for the first time since 1993.

On Pattison took a look at many other great moments in Phillies / Mets history earlier this season. Something tells us, however, that the list will need to be updated very soon.

Phillies. Mets. After over 1,000 head-to-head games, their first postseason matchup in history. And it all gets started tomorrow.

Please note that dropping the following tweet here is not intended to take any one person on in a specific way. We’re using it as an example of a sentiment that can be found lots of places, especially given the events of last night.

That said, we disagree with the sentiment below without reservation:

There are many perfectly valid reasons for selling NLDS tickets. Here are a few we can think of totally off the cuff:

• You have a compelling personal reason that you cannot attend the game.

• You can make a car payment with the difference between what you spent on the tickets and what you can sell them for.

• You attended every home playoff game over the last two seasons and now an NLDS game just isn’t that compelling.

• You can’t stand the thought of watching the Mets win a playoff game at CBP.

• You’ve reached “World Series or Bust” levels of malaise about Red October.

So you’ll sell the tickets, and you’ll know in doing so that you’re going to catch a lot of heat. Plenty of people in your life know you have postseason tickets. When you don’t attend the game yourself or hand them over to friends/family, you’ll be painted as greedy and disloyal.

Here’s the thing, though: What you do with your Phillies playoff tickets is your business — and nobody else’s. These people who are telling you what you can and cannot do with the playoff tickets, ask them a question or two.

If Zack Wheeler had blown a UCL in late September, would they have given you $100 to help defray the lost value of your playoff tickets? If you have the playoff seats because you had season tickets, and the Phillies had gone 86-76 instead of 95-67, would they have cut you a check to cover some of the cost of your worthless September ducats?

No and no.

Besides, if we want to get REAL about this, there is one perfect retort to an allegation that selling your playoff tickets on the open market is wrong:

It’s not like CBP was crawling with Snakes fans in Games 6 and 7 of the 2023 NLCS. There may never be a purer home field advantage (per capita in attendance) than the Phillies had in those games. Fat lot of good it did them.

If you want to sell your playoff tickets — to anyone — we’ll never tell.

It’s deja vu all over again for Penn State football fans. Another year, another very nice start for the Nittany Lions.

James Franklin’s teams broke out to a 5-0 record in 2022 and a 6-0 start in 2023. If anything, Penn State’s start in 2024 suggests that that zero after the hyphen might last into November.

Yup…UCLA is in the Big Ten. That makes sense.

In a game where the Lions are favored by about four touchdowns, there aren’t that many potential problems to worry about. But there are a few.

• At the top of the list: This is a classic trap game. Penn State faces #11 USC next week. That contest against the Trojans is likely to have a greater bearing on the Lions’ postseason aspirations. Unless, you know, they somehow lose to UCLA.

• Penn State has been able to physically dominate their first four opponents (even in the close win over Bowling Green, they were certainly bigger/faster/stronger). So the offense was almost equally as productive on the ground as it was in the air. As the quality of their opposition improves, though, finding a reliable aerial attack via quarterback Drew Allar will be vital. The Lions might use this game against UCLA to try some things out in the passing game.

• You wouldn’t expect this game to come down to a kick, but suffice it to say that the Penn State placekicking situation is in flux. Sander Sahaydak missed twice from 40 yards last week. It’s currently uncertain whether he gets the next field goal chance.

For his part, Franklin has made his expectations for this game quite clear:

Penn State fans will look to make the annual Stripe Out Game a success. With this team’s expectations, “success” should probably mean a rout.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On October 4, 1980, Mike Schmidt hit an 11th-inning home run off Montreal Expos pitcher Stan Bahnsen. The Phillies won, 6-4, clinching the NL East.

It was the start of an incredible ride to the first World Series championship in Phillies history.

📊 Poll

Results from Wednesday:

🔗 Links

• 🍌The Savannah Bananas are returning to CBP for a two-game set in 2025.

• 🏀 Joel Embiid says he will “ease off” if the Sixers doctors tell him to.

• 🏒 Alexei Kolosov gave up three goals on 13 shots last night.

• 🔴 Former Phillies skipper Terry Francona is coming out of retirement to manage the Reds.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

Mets at Phillies, NLDS Game One: Saturday, 4:08 p.m. (FOX)

Union at Columbus Crew: Saturday, 7:30 p.m. (Apple TV+)

Mets at Phillies, NLDS Game Two: Sunday, 4:08 p.m. (FS1)

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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