Well Atlanta is positioned pretty well for the playoffs, with their seeding locked up for a while now and the ability to line up their pitching that comes with that. They managed Saturday’s game well, despite the injury to Martin Perez, with Brent Suter covering the first 3.0 innings and no blowups to disrupt plans in the bullpen. Meanwhile, the Phillies can’t quite finish the deal for their playoff spot, with a 1 game lead on the D-Backs, but losing the tiebreak to Arizona. They resorted to starting Aaron Nola on 2 days rest Saturday, which went very poorly for them. This could work out favorably for Atlanta if they end up facing the Phillies in the Wild-Card round, with the Phils having to pull out all the stops on their pitching staff just to get there, or they could even watch their division rivals flame out and miss the Wild-Card entirely, which is its own type of fun.
