NL Championship Series: Everything you need to know about the Padres

The baseball purists are crying all over their unwritten rules now that two mutts have emerged to play in the National League Championship Series. Boo-hoo.

The Phillies went 4-3 against the Padres this year. San Diego took two of three at Citizens Bank Park in May. The Phillies returned the favor by taking three of four in San Diego in June. All three of San Diego’s wins were by shutout, for whatever that’s worth.

The oddsmakers have this series as a virtual toss-up, which sounds about right since hardly anyone outside of the respective clubhouses thought these teams would be playing for a chance to go to the World Series. So, with that, here are some things to know about the Phillies’ next opponent.

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1. The Padres opened around 8-1 to win the National League pennant in the preseason and were even higher (12-1) before the playoffs. The Phillies opened at 14-1 and were 11-1 before the postseason started.

2. Padres centerfielder Trent Grisham hit .184 in 152 games this year, including .107 in September/October. But he’s hitting .381 in the postseason with at least one hit in seven of eight games, including home runs off Mets stars Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, and Dodgers reliever Andrew Heaney. He’s a terrific defensive player and, oddly, doesn’t wear batting gloves.

3. Austin Nola, Aaron’s older brother by four years, is the Padres’ catcher. Austin is 1-for-5 off Aaron, but the hit was a big one: an RBI single in a 1-0 Padres win over the Phillies on June 24.

4. The Phillies were fifth in the majors with 105 stolen bases (against 28 times caught stealing, a 78.9% success rate). They were 4-for-5 running against Austin Nola.

5. The Padres had just 49 steals, fourth fewest in the majors (22 times caught stealing, 69.0%). They did not attempt a steal against the Phillies.

6. Jorge Alfaro, who was with the Phillies from 2016-18 before being dealt to the Marlins in the J.T. Realmuto deal, is the Padres’ backup catcher.

7. Four teams had at least 100 wins this season and the Padres eliminated two of them (Dodgers 111 wins, Mets 101). Only the Astros (106) made it to the LCS. The Braves (101) were eliminated by the Phillies.

8. BetMGM’s preseason win total lines were 86.5 for the Phillies, 88.5 for the Padres. The Phillies had 87 wins, San Diego had 89. Remarkable.

9. San Diego is making this run without slugging shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., who has missed the season — first with a wrist injury likely from a motorcycle accident in December and then after an 80-game suspension in August for taking a banned substance. Padres playoff games count toward Tatis’ suspension.

10. Ha-Seong Kim has taken his spot and been such a defensive upgrade that the Padres may consider moving Tatis to the outfield when he returns. Tatis finished third in MVP voting last year behind Bryce Harper and Washington’s Juan Soto.

11. The Padres pushed all of their metaphorical chips to the center of the table in August when they traded a handful of prospects to the Nationals for Soto and DH/1B Josh Bell.

12. Soto, a two-time All-Star, had a lackluster regular season but has picked things up lately, hitting .299 since mid-September. Bell, who hit 37 homers for the Pirates three years ago, hit just .192 for the Padres and sits against lefties.

13. The Padres are 2-0 all-time in the NLCS. They beat the Cubs in 1984 and the Braves in 1998. The Phillies are 5-4. This will be the first playoff meeting between the two clubs and, in fact, the first time any Philadelphia team has played San Diego in the postseason. Granted, the only possibilities were an Eagles-Chargers Super Bowl before they moved to L.A. in 2017 or the 76ers playing the San Diego Clippers in the NBA Finals sometime between 1978-84. That wasn’t happening, either.

14. Padres pitcher Yu Darvish had a string of 24 consecutive starts with at least 6 innings pitched end in Game 2 against the Dodgers when he was lifted after allowing three runs in five innings. The streak dated back to May 19. Impressive.

15. San Diego’s bullpen has allowed one earned run in its last 19 innings. “All those guys have been incredible,” Soto said Friday. “I think this is one of the greatest bullpens I’ve ever seen.” Soto is only 23 and in his fifth season, but he did win a World Series with Washington in 2019.

16. Luis Garcia, who pitched in 251 games for the Phillies from 2013-18, is a member of the Padres’ bullpen. He’s thrown two scoreless innings this postseason.

17. A.J. Preller is the Padres president/general manager. His first baseball job was as an intern in the Phillies ticket office while he was a junior at Cornell, where he graduated in 1999. A story in the San Diego Union-Tribune eight years ago noted that he and a partner won the office’s fantasy baseball league that year. “He was serious,” said Phil Feather, who ran the Phillies internship program back then. “He didn’t do a whole lot of joking around.”

» READ MORE: Three departing Phillies employees describe their thrilling rides working for the team they love

18. San Diego closer Josh Hader has gone 14 consecutive appearances without allowing an earned run, including four in the postseason. He’s a lefty who has owned Kyle Schwarber (0-for-13, nine strikeouts). Bryce Harper has faced him only once, and also struck out. Current Phillies hitters are 3-for-34 off Hader with 19 whiffs, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

19. Padres hitters were fifth in the majors in walks drawn per game with an average of 3.5. In his only start against the Padres this season, Zack Wheeler pitched seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts and zero walks in a 3-0 Phillies win on May 18. That was so long ago that Corey Knebel picked up the save.

20. Six-time All-Star Manny Machado is the Padres clubhouse leader. He’s 1-for-13 (.077) in his career against Aaron Nola, 2-for-8 against Wheeler, 1-for-2 against Ranger Suárez.

21. Machado was the third overall pick in the 2010 draft. Bryce Harper went first, Jameson Taillon went second. Noah Syndergaard (38th), Nick Castellanos (44th), and J.T. Realmuto (104th) also were drafted that year.

22. It was on June 25 when Padres pitcher Blake Snell hit Bryce Harper with a pitch that broke the slugger’s thumb and cost him two months on the shelf. In 2020, Snell was among those who spoke out against a possible players’ pay cut for the pandemic-shortened season. Harper supported Snell’s position and called him a “beast” and one of the best lefties in the game.”

23. Harper’s only hit off Snell in seven at-bats was a 430-foot bomb last year in San Diego.

24. Starting pitcher Joe Musgrove won a World Series ring as a reliever for the 2017 Astros. He was born in nearby El Cajon and is the first local pitcher ever to start a postseason game for the Padres. He wears No. 44 in honor of former San Diego ace Jake Peavy.

25. Musgrove, who pitched the only no-hitter in Padres history in 2021, signed a five-year, $100 million extension on Aug. 1. He’ll turn 30 in December. “Me and my dad [were] kind of drawing this thing out back in high school, what it would look like. It was: Get to the big leagues, try to win a championship. Then come to San Diego and bring the first one here, and finish my career here.”

The pick: By closing out both division series in four games, each team was able to reset its pitching. So the call here is, just like their regular-season series, Phillies in seven.