Phillies to face Marlins in playoffs as top NL Wild Card team

Major League Baseball’s postseason field is set, and for the second straight season, the Philadelphia Phillies are in the Wild Card field.  They will face their NL East rival Miami Marlins in a best-of-three National League Wild Card Series.

The playoffs start on Tuesday, while Game 2 is set for Wednesday and Game 3 (if necessary) on Thursday. Each game will be played at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia with a start time of 8:08 and can be heard on 97.3 ESPN.

The Phillies clinched the No. 1 Wild Card seed and will face No. 2 seeded Miami, who finished the season 84-77 after their win on Saturday to enter the field. Miami landed the No. 2 spot after Arizona fell to the Houston Astros, 8-1, on Sunday,

The winner of this NL Wild-Card series will take on the No. 1 seeded Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series.

Miami closed the season 17-9 in the month of September to land the No. 2 Wild-Card seed.

The Marlins have long been a thorn in the Phillies side, winning the season series over Philadelphia with a 7-6 record in the 13 games.

Miami has announced their Game 1 and 2 starters, going with a pair of lefties, Jesus Luzardo in Game 1 and Braxton Garrett in Game 2.

Their 4.22 team ERA ranked eighth in the NL.

Luzardo threw 12.1 innings, giving up five earned runs in two starts against the Phillies this year. Overall he was 2-0 with a 3.75 ERA against Philadelphia in 2023, and is 3-0 with a 3.26 ERA, 1.08 WHIP in 30.1 innings in five career games against the Phillies. At CItizend Bank Park, he is 1-0 with a 3.46 ERA in two games.

The last time they played each other was Sept 8-10, a series the Marlins won 2-1 in Philadelphia.

For Philadelphia, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola will pitch the first two games, Phillies manager Rob Thomson has not announced who will throw in a Game 3 if needed.