If the best kind of World Series matchup is a meeting of two elite teams, the next best has to be the one we have this year. On one side you have a seemingly unbeatable powerhouse and on the other, an underdog led by a red-hot slugger.

The 19-win difference in regular season win totals makes it tempting to think that the Astros will wipe the floor with the Phillies, but if there’s one thing that Philadelphia’s march through the postseason has reminded us, it’s that anything can happen in a short series. Houston is the far superior team but it’s more than possible that things shake out just right for the Phillies and they spare everyone from the sight of the dreaded Astros celebrating with the Commissioner’s Trophy. Here are five factors that will help decide the series:

How hot Bryce Harper stays

Harper has been out of control in the postseason, with 18 hits (11 of them for extra bases) in the Phillies 11 playoff games. He has been the entirety of the Phillies’ offense in October. He’s leading or tied for the team lead in all of the following categories: hits, home runs, doubles, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging. Harper is the engine that keeps the Phillies’ lineup moving and he’ll need to keep it up against Houston.

The Phillies’ offensive depth

It doesn’t matter if Harper continues to crush the ball if the Phillies can’t get anyone on base for him to drive in. The first three hitters in the Philadelphia lineup—Kyle Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins and J.T. Realmuto—did their part against the Padres. Those three and Harper combined to score 18 of the Phillies’ 24 runs in the NLCS.

The Phillies’ front-line starters

The Astros have the better pitching but Phillies starters Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler have been as reliable as anybody Houston has, as Will Laws wrote earlier this week:

[W]hile managers are often reluctant to let their starters run through opposing batting orders a third time, Wheeler and Nola fared better than the league average in that scenario this year (Nola was actually even better when facing hitters for the third time than the second time). Philadelphia’s pitching staff has been built around its two horses, so the Phils should ride them on the biggest stage.

The Astros’ slumping stars

The thing that should scare the Phillies is that the Astros have gone undefeated this postseason without much help from two of their most important hitters. Yordan Alvarez went 3-for-5 in Game 1 of the ALDS (including that walk-off homer off of Robbie Ray) but has cooled off since. In Houston’s other six playoff games, he’s batting .167 with eight strikeouts. Jose Altuve has also struggled. He didn’t pick up his first hit of the postseason until Game 3 of the ALCS, which isn’t what you want from your leadoff hitter. He even went 0-for-8 in that 18-inning marathon against the Mariners. If Alvarez and Altuve can regain their regular season form, the Phillies are probably toast.

The bullpens

Led by Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly, the Astros have a great bullpen. Houston relievers have allowed just three runs this postseason. But here’s the problem: They’re all righties. The Astros kept their only lefthanded reliever, Will Smith, off of the ALDS and ALCS rosters. That means they probably won’t have a lefty to call on to try to stymie Schwarber and Harper in a clutch situation.

The Phillies have some question marks in the bullpen. Brad Hand and Bailey Falter stunk so much in the NLCS that Laws thinks they might not even make the World Series roster. Being able to bring a guy like Noah Syndergaard out of the pen is nice, but the Phillies lack the bullpen depth of the Astros, hence the need for the starters to go deep into games.

More World Series coverage:

The best of Sports Illustrated

In today’s Daily Cover, Chris Mannix explores whether Jake Paul can be taken seriously as a professional boxer—and whether he needs to be:

Paul doesn’t need boxing. Yes, it has allowed him to make a lucrative pivot—he earned $40 million in boxing last year, per Forbes and tells Sports Illustrated that boxing represents his most significant income—but he is rich in a way that no 5–0 boxer has ever been. Last year, he earned $5 million from YouTube alone. His promotional company, Most Valuable Promotions, co-promoted Katie Taylor’s fight against Amanda Serrano, arguably the biggest fight in women’s boxing history. He recently launched Betr, a sports gambling app, and, in August, debuted a weekly sports talk show. That feed alone has 2.4 million YouTube subscribers.

Emma Baccellieri spoke with the inventor of PitchCom about how MLB teams have adopted the device and the challenges raucous October crowds have posed for the pitchers. … Pat Forde has the story of brothers Chase and Sydney Brown who, after a tumultuous upbringing, are thriving together as football players at Illinois. … Rohan Nadkarni thinks the Nets should try playing the struggling Ben Simmons at center.

Ticket prices are surging for Kentucky’s highly anticipated trip to Tennessee.

Around the sports world

The Bucs lost to the Ravens and Tom Brady is now two games under .500 for the first time in his career. … Brady has also now been sacked more times than any quarterback in NFL history. … Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns has stepped down from that role. … Dusty Baker said the lack of U.S.-born Black players in this year’s World Series “looks bad.” … Cristiano Ronaldo returned to the Manchester United lineup and scored a goal. … Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase could be headed to injured reserve. … The Texas women’s basketball team will hold a charity game to benefit Uvalde.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Ja Morant’s creative ball-handling.

4. Luka Dončić’s nifty no-look pass.

3. This clutch play by Ben Simmons at the end of the Nets-Mavs game.

2. A classic long run by Lamar Jackson.

1. Connor McDavid’s 12th career hat trick. Here’s his first, second and third goals. The second is my favorite.

SIQ

On this day in 1997, which league announced that it had hired the first two women to officiate games in major American men’s sports?

Yesterday’s SIQ: Before the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVIII and the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, what was the last city to have a Super Bowl champion and World Series champion in the same year?

Pittsburgh
New York
Oakland
Los Angeles

Answer: Pittsburgh, in 1979. The Steelers won Super Bowl XIII after the ’78 season and the Pirates followed it up by winning the ’79 World Series. Interestingly, in both cases, the city’s NFL team went on to win a second straight Super Bowl.

For Boston, it was the start of one of the greatest runs of success for a city’s sports teams. From 2002–19, the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins combined to win 12 titles.

New York also enjoyed Super Bowl and World Series championships in quick succession, but the Giants’ win in Super Bowl XXI came in January 1987, so not actually the same year as the Mets won the World Series.

From the Vault: Oct. 28, 1968

The 2022 Packers are a lot like the 1968 Green Bay team.

On Sunday night, the struggling Packers will travel to Buffalo to face a great Bills team with Green Bay needing a win to avoid its first five-loss season since 2018. It’s a situation similar to the one the team faced 54 years ago. The Packers had won three straight titles (one NFL championship and two Super Bowls) but were 2–3–1 through six weeks. Up next on the schedule was a Monday night game in Dallas against the undefeated Cowboys.

Tex Maule didn’t think the Packers were toast, though:

Although they are in trouble, the Packers are not dead—far from it. Their parlous state results from a number of problems, none insoluble. The first, and most serious, was a concentration of injuries at one position—defensive tackle. Then, when the tackles regained their health and the defense its accustomed puissance, Bart Starr, their All-Pro quarterback, pulled a muscle in his right arm warming up before a game with the Los Angeles Rams two weeks ago. Zeke Bratkowski, his usually capable replacement, had an off day, throwing three interceptions and fumbling once. Yet the Rams still needed a late and questionable pass-interference call to beat Green Bay 16–14.

Maule goes on to explain all the reasons why he thinks the Packers are capable of a rebound. Indeed, they were, winning that Cowboys game 28–17. But it was just a flash in the pan. They finished the season at 6–7–1, their first losing season since 1958.

This year’s Packers appear headed in a similar direction. A win against the Bills, though, as unlikely as it may seem, would be an indication that they’re getting on the right track. If that’s going to happen, they’ll have to clean up those mental errors Aaron Rodgers keeps talking about.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

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