Citizens Bank Park will have a hint of October in the air this weekend.

The New York Mets are in town with a wild card berth on the line and the Phillies are still pursuing the best overall record in the National League and the home-field advantage that comes with it.

The Phillies are a -145 favorite on the series line at DraftKings, but the pitching matchups aren’t as strong as the previous two Atlanta series.

Aaron Nola is leading off on Friday, Kolby Allard is penciled into the dreaded fifth rotation spot for Saturday, and the machine that is Cristopher Sanchez inside CBP heads to the bump on Sunday.

The Mets are countering with Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, and David Peterson in that order. The Phils avoid Sean Manaea and Chris Bassitt, who threw Tuesday and Wednesday in Toronto.


The Mets have cooled off a bit since their nine-game winning streak ended, but they still are a huge threat with their bats inside a hitter-friendly park. They also have plenty of motivation to extend their one-game wild card lead over the Atlanta Braves.

Quick Sidebar: The Braves host the Los Angeles Dodgers in a four-game set that starts on Friday. Scoreboard watching will intensify this weekend as a result.

New York basically has to treat each of its remaining games as a playoff contest. They play the Phils six times, Washington at home for three, and end the season with a six-game road swing in Atlanta and Milwaukee.

The good news for the Phils is that Nola dominated the Mets back in May with a complete-game, nine-strikeout performance. The Mets are a middle-of-the-pack team when it comes to strikeouts, so I would recommend looking into Nola’s outs prop of over/under 18.5 rather than his strikeout prop of over/under 6.5

The Phils own the second-best batting average against lefties, which is important this weekend because they face two southpaws in Quintana and Peterson.

Quintana allowed a single earned run in his last three starts, but before that, he had a run of four straight games with at least three earned runs allowed.

Peterson gave up at least five hits in each of his last five appearances and has 15 walks in his last eight starts.

Translation: both Quintana and Peterson are hittable.

If Nola is at his best and Sanchez keeps up his home form (2.11 home ERA), the Phillies should be in good shape to win the series.

The difference maker might be Saturday, but if Nola and Sanchez both pitch deep into their starts, the Phils can unload the bullpen behind Allard and make life a bit easier.

Winning two of three games is the minimum expectation for the Phillies.

Hopefully there’s some help from the Braves and the Arizona Diamondbacks, who host the Brewers this weekend, to create some separation at the top of the NL.

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