The Phillies finished the 2024 regular season with 95 wins, good enough for sixth-most in franchise history and the #2 seed in the National League. They’ll host the NLDS against the winner of the 3/6 Wild Card series between the Brewers and whomever comes out of the Braves/Mets/Dbacks clusterfuck, which goes like this:

Right, so the Mets and Braves play at 1:10 and 4:40 today. A split sees both teams go in as Wild Cards, with the Mets on the Phillies’ side of the bracket.

I’ve looked this over a hundred times, thinking that surely there’s a way to screw all three teams, but alas, there is not. Which means you’re looking at the trio of two division rivals and the team that knocked you out last year and asking which one you prefer not make the playoffs. The Mets have played better second half baseball than the Braves and D Backs, so if you’re a believer in momentum and form, you’d want the Braves to sweep on Monday and knock New York out. That would put Arizona in as as the six seed. What’s more likely is that whomever wins the 1:10 p.m. game on Monday takes their foot off the gas for game 2, and we get a boring, anticlimactic split.

The dumbest thing about all of this is that there exists a scenario that sees the Mets go right back to Milwaukee, where they played on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So it would be three games in Wisconsin, fly to Atlanta for a doubleheader, then again to Wisconsin to start the Wild Card series, with a trip to Philadelphia awaiting the winner. People have posited the idea that the Braves and Mets should forfeit one game each, which would be hilarious. They’d both get in, save themselves the burden of playing two games, and screw the Diamondbacks in the process. Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, because then the Jimmy Eat World drummer would have to eat shit. Of course, that would put two division rivals in the postseason, and provide for a scenario where you could see one in the NLDS and the other in the NLCS, if that team can get through both the Padres and the Dodgers. That’s unlikely, but playing both the Mets and Braves in the same postseason would be ELECTRIC! Let’s go! If you’re scared, get a dog!