Houston Astros (106-56) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (87-75)
Road to the World Series: Astros beat the Seattle Mariners 3-0 in the AL Division Series and the New York Yankees 4-0 in the AL Championship Series. Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-0 in the NL wild card series, beat the Atlanta Braves 3-1 in the NLDS and the San Diego Padres 4-1 in the NLCS.
Regular season series: Astros 2-1
Championship odds: Astros -185, Phillies +160
For those of us of a certain age, the first World Series of the 12-team tournament era will conjure up fond memories of the 1980 NLCS, when the Phillies outlasted the Astros in five games in what might have been the best LCS of the best-of-five era. Each of the final four games were decided in extra innings, with the eventual World Series champion Phillies avoiding elimination by overcoming multi-run deficits in the eighth inning of Games 4 and 5 — the latter against future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.
But the Phillies’ best hope of repeating history likely lies with channeling a Philadelphia-based team in another newly expanded tournament.
This matchup of the Astros and Phillies is one of the most lopsided-looking title round duels in any sport since the 1985 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, when Georgetown, which headed into the national championship game having lost two games by a total of three points, faced Villanova, which lost 10 games and squeaked into the NCAA Tournament as the eighth seed in the Southeast Region. But Villanova authored the all-time NCAA upset, playing what has been dubbed “The Perfect Game” and going 9-of-10 from the field in the second half of a 66-64 win.
Bad news for the Phillies: This is a best-of-seven.
The Astros, playing like they are determined to win a second title that will dwarf any doubts anyone possesses about the validity of their tainted 2017 title, have shown few weaknesses in winning their first seven playoff games. After needing comebacks to defeat the Mariners in the first two games of the AL Division Series and 18 innings to earn a 1-0 victory in Game 3, Houston trailed for just nine outs in sweeping the Yankees in the ALCS.
In a homer-or-bust baseball era — Phillies batters rank second this postseason with 12 homers and 107 strikeouts — the Astros have both managed to hit for power and neutralize their opponents.
Despite playing just those seven games, the Astros have 12 homers, tied with the Yankees for the third-most in the playoffs this month, while allowing only five homers. Their pitchers have recorded 89 strikeouts, third-most this month behind only the Phillies, who have played 11 games, and the Padres, who played 12 games.
A four-game series is a pretty small sample size, but an ALCS in which the Astros struck out 25 times — half as many as the Yankees’ 50 whiffs — marked the fifth straight best-of-seven in which the Astros struck out fewer times than their opponents. Houston has averaged 7.83 strikeouts per game in a best-of-seven series dating back to the 2019 World Series while whiffing opponents an average of 10.31 times per game.
In addition, Houston’s starters have combined to post a 3.31 ERA in the postseason — pretty good, but nothing compared to its relievers, who have allowed three earned runs in 33 innings for an ERA of 0.82. Phillies starters have posted a 2.91 ERA this month while their relievers have compiled a 3.27 ERA.
All that said, the Phillies are surely going to be a more formidable foe for the Astros than the Yankees. Philadelphia has displayed a pretty good postseason formula — a rotation headed by co-aces Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola and a lineup filled with clutch power hitters, including Bryce Harper, who is going to have a statue erected right next to Rocky Balboa in honor of his NLCS-clinching homer in the rain Sunday — and are a classic example of an imperfect regular season team getting hot at the right time.
The World Series winner had fewer regular season victories than its opponent 14 times in 27 postseason in the wild card era and 27 times in 52 years in the LCS era. Along those lines, the gap in regular season wins between the Astros and Phillies is the second-largest in World Series history, exceeded only by the 1906 World Series, when the 93-win Chicago White Sox upset the 116-win Chicago Cubs.
But the Phillies feel like a modern version of the 2007 Colorado Rockies, who roared into the playoffs by winning 14 of their final 15 regular season games and didn’t lose in the first two rounds before running into the AL’s best team, the Boston Red Sox, following an eight-day layoff. The Red Sox swept the World Series for their second title in four years.
The Phillies’ 3-0 win over the Astros on Oct. 3 not only clinched their spot in the postseason, it also made them the most recent team to beat Houston. They’ll still have that moniker no matter what happens this series, but one more win here is probably the best they can hope for.
To paraphrase another Philadelphia icon — former 76ers center Moses Malone, who predicted his team would go “fo, fo, fo” and sweep its way through the three rounds of the 1983 NBA playoffs, when they merely went four, five and four — it’s going to be three, fo’, five in 2022 for the Astros as they cement their legacy as the team of this era and solidify manager Dusty Baker’s Hall of Fame case.
PREDICTION: Astros in 5.
ONE FUN PROP BET: Jeremy Pena most hits in series (+700)
SERIES PREDICTION RECORD: 5-5
