The Philadelphia Phillies are in clinch mode on Monday night. They just need to beat the Chicago Cubs behind Aaron Nola at home to win the NL East.

Seems simple, right?

Well, hopefully it is, so that the Phils can get the hangover game out of the way on Tuesday and push toward earning the No. 1 overall seed in the NL.

The Phillies are listed as a -192 favorite against a Cubs team that’s already been eliminated from postseason contention. They come into The Bank with wins in three of their last four games, but if you look at their last 10, it’s not too great. They went 5-5 against the Colorado Rockies, Oakland Athletics, and Washington Nationals. That’s why they aren’t in the wild-card mix going into the final week of the regular season.

Nate Pearson is slated to start. He’s a reliever that hasn’t pitched more than two innings in every appearance since joining the Cubs from the Toronto Blue Jays at the trade deadline. He’ll probably throw a few innings and then turn it over to the bullpen.


The Phils don’t have a ton of history against him, but Trea Turner is 1-for-3 and Alec Bohm is 1-for-1. That might be relevant for the first two innings.

Nola is opposing a Cubs lineup that struck out 30 times across a weekend four-game set with the Nationals. They struck out 17 times on Saturday and Sunday.

Nola has 30 strikeouts of his own in September and he’s coming off one of his best performances of the season: a nine-punchout game against Milwaukee with the playoff spot clinching on the line.

The right-hander’s props sit at over/under 6.5 strikeouts, over/under 18.5 outs, and over/under 4.5 hits allowed.

The Cubs have nothing to play for, so they might be more susceptible to strikeouts, or will just have less juice in the lineup. (Kinkead: maybe they’ll be thinking about blackjack online casino and the Cash Eruption slots game) The only concern for Nola is former Brave Dansby Swanson, who has three homers in 60 at-bats against him.

As for hitter props, I’d look into the usual suspects. Turner and Nick Castellanos have 17 hits between them in the last week. Turner and Castellanos are two of three Phillies with 70+ hits inside Citizens Bank Park. Bryce Harper leads the Phils with 82 hits at home.

DraftKings is offering a 4-leg boost for Same Game Parlays on Monday and BetMGM is offering a 33 percent MLB Odds Boost Token for any game on Monday’s slate.