The Arizona Diamondbacks are a very good baseball club.
They have managed not only to compete at the highest level, but beat two division champions in the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers during the 2023 postseason.
However, if the National League Championship Series has taught us anything after the first two games, it’s that the Philadelphia Phillies appear to be a tier above.
It might be a bit odd to reach that conclusion given that only two games have been played, and none of them have been in Arizona.
Yet the Phillies look so good, balanced, powerful, and effective in all areas that it becomes evident.
This is not to say the D-Backs don’t have a chance, but so far, the Phillies lineup has been extremely productive and the numbers back that up.
“Phillies have a .575 slugging percentage this postseason. To put that in perspective, only 5 players had a .575+ SLG this season: – Shohei Ohtani – Corey Seager – Matt Olson – Ronald Acuña Jr. – Mookie Betts. The Phils — as an entire team — are hitting at an MVP-caliber level,” MLB reporter Paul Casella tweeted.
Phillies have a .575 slugging percentage this postseason. To put that in perspective, only 5 players had a .575+ SLG this season:
– Shohei Ohtani
– Corey Seager
– Matt Olson
– Ronald Acuña Jr.
– Mookie BettsThe Phils — as an entire team — are hitting at an MVP-caliber level.
— Paul Casella (@Paul_CasellaMLB) October 18, 2023
The Phillies won, 10-0, on Tuesday night, with a dominant outing by Aaron Nola (six scoreless innings with three hits, no walks and seven strikeouts) and three more home runs: two by Kyle Schwarber and one by Trea Turner.
On a night in which Bryce Harper was held to a 1-for-4 performance with no RBI, the Phils go out and score 10 runs.
As a team, Philadelphia has 19 home runs (!) in just eight postseason games this year.
They have also scored 46 runs in the eight games, almost six per contest.
They took down the pesky Miami Marlins in the Wild Card round and then the best team of the regular season, the Atlanta Braves.
Between those two series and the first two games of the NLCS against Arizona, Philadelphia has a 7-1 record.
They will be very hard to beat.
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