Phillies Locked Into 3rd NL Wild Card, Going to St. Louis for Playoff Series

The Philadelphia Phillies’ return to the postseason for the first time in 11 years will begin against the same team that knocked them out the last time they were in the playoffs - the St. Louis Cardinals.

With their Tuesday night loss in Houston, the Phillies are now locked into the No. 3 wild card slot in the National League field. That locks in a Phillies trip to St. Louis for a best-of-three series against the N.L. Central champion Cardinals, while the No. 4 seeded New York Mets will host the No. 5  San Diego Padres.

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The Phillies-Cardinals series will begin Friday. A time for the opening game has not yet been announced.

(Select Phillies Playoff games will air on 97.3 ESPN)

The two teams last met in the 2011 playoffs with the 85-win Cardinals knocking out the 102-win Phillies three-games-to-two when Chris Carpenter outdueled Roy Halladay and Ryan Howard fell coming out of the left-handed batters box, ending the Phillies five-year playoff run.

The Phillies went 4-3 against the Cardinals in the regular season, including 2-2 in St. Louis. That series at the Busch Stadium came back in July, which was before St. Louis made some key additions at the trade deadline.

By clinching the No. 3 seed, it does show a sign of progress for the Phillies who have failed in recent September playoff runs, fading away as the calendar went from summer to fall the previous four seasons.

Philadelphia clinched the end of its 11-year playoff drought on Tuesday night with 3-0 win over the Astros.

Red October all starts on Friday in the best-of-three series, with Zach Wheeler getting Game 1, Aaron Nola in Game 2 and Ranger Suarez would pitch a deciding Game 3.