With one-third of the season over, the entire National League reached Memorial Day still thinking playoffs. Even the worst team, the 23–31 Nationals, are five games out of a wild-card spot. It is a function of both the extra wild card added last season and abject mediocrity.
For inspiration, every middling team can look to the 2022 Phillies—including the ’23 Phillies. Last year’s Phillies are proof that in an expanded playoff world you are never more than two or three hot weeks from the playoffs (and possibly a change of managers).
Those Phillies started out 21–29 before running off a 15–2 streak against six nonplayoff teams. That’s all it took. Outside of those 17 games, Philadelphia was 72–73. It slipped into the playoffs with 87 wins as the third wild-card team, knocked off the Braves and Padres and held a two-games-to-one lead over Houston before losing the World Series.
