Note: This was written before the Phils got blown out tonight.

 

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight – or, as I like to call it, Sports for Nerds (I kid) – has not exactly been bullish on the Phillies, understandably. Their current power rankings, based on the Elo system, which is described as

Thanks to Retrosheet, we’ve collected game results and box scores back to 1871 and used them to create an Elo-based rating system and predictive model for baseball that incorporates home-field advantage, margin of victory, travel, rest and — most importantly — starting pitchers. The ratings are also adjusted for park and era effects and account for the fact that favorites are more likely to win in the postseason than in the regular season.

… still gives the Phillies the second worst score in baseball, with only a 10% chance to make the playoffs. The bottom three teams:

Voila_Capture 2016-05-02_08-55-53_PM

But FiveThirtyEight’s per-game projections haven’t exactly been, well, accurate, and the Phillies Twitter person – who is either new to their role or the same person as before but after a lobotomy to insert a personality – had some fun and pointed out that the Phils haven’t been favored during any of their six straight wins:

Well played.