For surging Phillies, weekend road series vs. Mets offers much-needed litmus test

The Mets are 9-3 against the Phillies in 2022.

Let’s clarify a little. They’re 9-3 against the Phillies version 1.0 this season. You are about to see version 2.0.

The Phillies were 22-29 with Joe Girardi as manager. They are 40-19 with Rob Thompson; Only the Dodgers and Braves have more wins during this period. The planners certainly didn’t do Girardi any favours. His group played 12 times against the Mets – the best team in the division – but never once against the Nationals – the worst team in the division.

Thompson’s Phillies, on the other hand, have never played the Mets, but they are 10-2 against the club from our nation’s capital. It probably goes without saying, but the difference between 12 games against the Mets (with 73 wins) and 12 games against the Nationals (with 37 wins) is HUGE.

So one can ask: Were Girardi’s Phillies really that terrible, or was this record mostly the result of a brutal Mets-heavy schedule? And conversely, are Thompson’s Phillies really that good — their .672 win ratio since the move equates to a 109-win pace for an entire season — or have they largely benefited from a Nats-heavy schedule?

Of course, we will never know the answer to this question. The schedule is the schedule, and Thompson is the manager, not Girardi. The Phillies 2.0 get a chance to prove they’re no Nats mirage this weekend when they head out for a three-game series at Citi Field. It is not yet known if Keith Hernandez will be in the booth for SNY.

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Calling this series a Battle for the NL East is way too far fetched. The Mets are 73-39 on the season, have won 19 of their last 24 games, and have a sizeable lead in the division, seven games ahead of the Braves and 10 ahead of the Phillies. The Mets are the better team, especially now that Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom are back to health and on the rotation.

But this streak is important to the Phillies, make no mistake.

For starters, they’re at the heart of NL wildcard racing. Assuming the Mets win the NL East, five teams will be fighting for four playoff spots. Either the Cardinals or the Brewers will take the Central Division crown, and the second-place team in that division will go head-to-head with the Braves, Phillies, and Padres for the three wild card spots. You are left out in the rain.

The series against the Mets is also an important benchmark. New York introduces its A rotation cycle; Scherzer is scheduled to start Friday, deGrom Saturday and Chris Bassitt – with a 3.39 ERA and only missed because of the guys above him in the rotation – goes Sunday. This is the trio that will keep every other team with October ambitions dry.

The Phillies counter with Ranger Suarez, Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler. This trio gives any Philadelphia fan hope that this could not only be the first year since 2011 that the club makes October, but the year that the team wins a playoff series or two.

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Being competitive this weekend is important. Are the Phillies good enough to stay with the Mets for nine innings three days straight? In games started by Scherzer and deGrom, can they get into the late innings with a shot?

Just the fact that this series carries any shred of importance speaks to how well the Phillies played under Thompson. Your mistakes are still mistakes; They’re not a good defensive team – just ask Hernandez – although adding Brandon Marsh’s glove to the outfield mix was a step in the right direction. And Nick Castellanos’ slumbering bat has finally shown signs of life; He has a .319 average and an .827 OPS in his last 13 games, a run that included a two-run homer in the eighth inning of a 3-1 win over Atlanta on Aug. 3. That was easily his biggest hit a Phillies uniform. And while it’s not all about him, it’s probably not much of a coincidence that Philly is 12-1 in those 13 games.

And the Phillies, like the Blue Jays, have enabled themselves to do something that hasn’t happened in more than a decade — qualify for the postseason after firing a manager mid-season. The last club to do so was the Rockies in 2009, who fired Clint Hurdle between the ages of 18 and 28. Jim Tracy walked in and made baseball miracles; Colorado went the rest of the way 74-42 and grabbed the lone NL wildcard by four games over the Giants.

Perhaps the most impressive element of the recent solid game is this: They’re doing it without 2021 NL MVP Bryce Harper, who has been in the IL since late June when an erratic fastball broke the thumb on his left hand. He’s hoping to return sometime in September – there’s no exact timetable yet – and that would strengthen the lineup. But that’s down the road.

Next up is the Mets series, and that will tell this Phillies team everything they need to know — good and bad — about their ability to compete with a team that can win anything in October.