{"id":309033,"date":"2025-09-11T23:13:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T23:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/309033\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T23:13:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T23:13:10","slug":"phillies-magic-number-how-soon-can-philadelphia-clinch-playoff-berth-nl-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/309033\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies magic number: How soon can Philadelphia clinch playoff berth, NL East?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> are in the midst of another great season. Currently sitting in first place in the National League East, the Phillies could very well be on their way to a second consecutive division title and fourth straight playoff appearance. However, they have not accomplished either of those feats just yet.<\/p>\n

With just 16 games left on their schedule, it won’t be long before the Phillies punch their ticket to the postseason yet again \u2013 or, should fate be dreadfully against them, they fail to reach the playoffs altogether. As unlikely as it may sound, it is still a mathematical possibility.<\/p>\n

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But with such massive margin for error, the Phillies have an exceptionally long leash. They could drop more than a few games, even go .500 the rest of the season and still finish the year with a massive lead over the second-place New York Mets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is the team’s magic number as we get closer to October baseball:<\/p>\n

METS: New York meltdown opens up NL wild card race<\/a><\/p>\n

What is the Phillies’ magic number?<\/p>\n

The Phillies currently have three magic numbers: one to clinch a playoff berth, one to clinch an NL East title and one to secure a first-round bye.<\/p>\n

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Phillies magic numbers<\/p>\n

Clinch postseason berth: 4<\/p>\n

Clinch first-round bye: 13<\/p>\n

Current NL Playoff standings<\/p>\n

If the MLB playoffs were to start Thursday, Sept. 11, here would be the standings in the National League:<\/p>\n

Milwaukee Brewres: 89-58 (first-round bye)<\/p>\n

Chicago Cubs: 83-63 (wild card)<\/p>\n

In the Hunt:<\/p>\n

San Francisco Giants: 74-72<\/p>\n

Arizona Diamondbacks: 73-74<\/p>\n

St. Louis Cardinals: 72-75<\/p>\n

What is a “magic number”?<\/p>\n

The term “magic number” is a figure that indicates how close a team is to securing a postseason berth, division title, or wild card berth. The figure indicates how many wins or losses by their closest competitor is needed in order to achieve a certain goal.<\/p>\n

Every win decreases the number by one. Every loss by the team’s closest competitor lowers the number by one as well.<\/p>\n

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Phillies remaining schedule<\/p>\n

Sept. 11: vs. New York Mets<\/p>\n

Sept. 12-14: vs. Kansas City Royals<\/p>\n

Sept. 15-17: at Los Angeles Dodgers<\/p>\n

Sept. 19-21: at Arizona Diamondbacks<\/p>\n

Sept. 23-25: vs. Miami Marlins<\/p>\n

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news \u2014 fast.\u00a0Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What’s Philadelphia Phillies magic number for 2025 MLB playoffs?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Phillies are in the midst of another great season. Currently sitting in first place in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[22,5,24,50,55,57,45618,46525,2328,2304,58,843,60,4,2305,2303,9258,61,25,7617,18,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-309033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals","13":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","14":"tag-magic-number","15":"tag-magic-numbers","16":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","17":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","18":"tag-miami-marlins","19":"tag-milwaukee","20":"tag-minnesota-twins","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-mlb-playoffs","23":"tag-mlb-postseason","24":"tag-national-league-east","25":"tag-new-york-mets","26":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","27":"tag-postseason-berth","28":"tag-san-diego-padres","29":"tag-san-francisco-giants","30":"tag-st-louis-cardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115188203784047773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}