Phillies take on 2 potential playoff teams this week

The Phillies have their work cut out for them this week. Starting tonight, the Phils take on one of the hottest teams in baseball over the past month. After the first two months of the season, the Atlanta Braves were a very mediocre baseball team, but now in June, they have one of the hottest records in baseball at 19-5 for the month so far.

Looking at the Braves schedule though, some of the teams they played aren’t the best in the MLB, they started out winning on the 1st of June though, and the winning didn’t stop until June 17th, they strung together a 14-game winning streak during that time. During the streak, they swept Colorado, Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Washington. Far from top market teams but they still had a very impressive winning streak. All of those wins and the Braves are without Freddie Freeman as he is with the Dodgers.

Nick Castellanos has been heating up for the Phils lately:

For the Phillies, they have been on a tear of their own, their June record is 18-6, and though the winning streak that the Phils had wasn’t as impressive as the Braves, the Phillies actually faced tougher teams during the month of June so far than the Braves who are 42-32 on the year. The Phils won a few series and swept the Angels and Brewers, and they took 3 of 4 games from the San Diego Padres.

Of course, the Phils got some really bad news in losing Bryce Harper, but they have to approach it as they have been. That is going out there and letting the team pickup itself without the services of Bryce Harper. The loss of Harper is immense but if they can keep playing as they have in the past few games, this team could find itself in the hunt for a playoff appearance for the first time since 2011, when they lost 3-2 in the NLDS against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals are the next team that the Phillies will take on, taking the team into July with a weekend series that will feature two fireworks shows. The fireworks shows are Friday night and Sunday night. Hopefully, by then, the Phillies would have lit off a number of fireworks on the field with great play and victories. The Cards aren’t as hot as the Braves currently, during the month of June so far, they are 14-13 but still sport a 42-34 record (which is just 2 games worse than the Braves) as of Tuesday morning.

The Braves are a team that can flat-out hit. Not only the longball but getting timely hitting and scoring runners. The Phillies will need to contain that potent offense while producing offense on their own chances at the plate. Here is the matchup for Game 1 featuring Zack Wheeler vs. Charlie Morton.

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