Six to watch in the NLCS: There's more than just Soto and Harper to keep an eye on

Honest to goodness: you’d think it was out of the ordinary that a 100-win Major League team didn’t make the World Series, let alone win it.

So the 89-win San Diego Padres beat the 101-win New York Mets and 111-win Los Angeles Dodgers en route to the National League Championship Series? So the 87-win Philadelphia Phillies beat the 101-win Atlanta Braves to advance? Meh. While the win differential between the Padres and Dodgers was one of the largest ever in a playoff upset, it’s not as if 100 wins guarantees anything. Far from it. There have been 43 100-plus win teams since 1989 and just– 5! – have gone on to win the World Series. Three of those title-winning centurions claimed titles in consecutive seasons: the 2016 Chicago Cubs, 2017 Houston Astros and 2018 Boston Red Sox. In fact, only 12 of those 100-win teams made it to the World Series. Nineteen didn’t even make it out of their division series.

So, spare me the hand-wringing. Spare me the instant analysis that “something must be wrong” with a “new” playoff format that really isn’t so new: nothing’s changed beyond the fact there’s a best-of-three wild-card instead of a sudden death game, which makes an inordinate amount of sense: in this sport, the three-game series is a regular-season staple. The division series have been best-of-five since baseball re-arranged its post-season following the 1994 strike — although the players' association proposed a best-of-seven division series format in recent labour negotiations.

I do buy into Dusty Baker’s notion that players rust away before they wear out and that inactivity isn’t great and, yeah, you can make that case maybe with the Dodgers. Frankly, they hadn’t played a meaningful game since, oh, the All-Star Break. But look at the Braves, who like the Dodgers were eliminated in four games after resting and waiting for the wild-card series to determine an opponent: they didn’t exactly coast to the finish, did they? In fact, they dropped the hammer in September to win the tie-breaker against the Mets and claim the home-field advantage that came with the NL East title.

So let’s hold off on deciding that the current format is any worse than other options. You want to think about something? How about the fact that seven of the eight teams that played in the division series happened to be the top seven teams in the Majors in terms of innings pitched by starters. The Dodgers were the outliers: they were 11^th in starters innings. The Padres and Phillies had more innings from their starters than any other NL team. No wonder there’s so much velocity.

Look: the only way I’d consider a major overhaul of the post-season would be if the regular season was dropped to 154 games, which isn’t about to happen. Re-seeding? We’ve done that before, and it makes a certain amount of sense as the game moves towards a balanced schedule. It would seem an easy change, but it’s not something that would make me go to the barricades, you know?

“I think we’ve been playing baseball for over 100 years and it’s been the same system going on,” said Padres third baseman Manny Machado. “Obviously, we added a little bit this year with the wild card, making it a best of three. But it’s always been five, seven, seven. I don’t get into politics stuff. That’s all I know.”

As for the lack of star-power some have talked about? Really? Bryce Harper? Machado — who was courted by the Phillies as a free-agent at the same time as Harper? Juan Soto? Just because they pitch in Philadelphia and not New York or Los Angeles, it doesn’t mean Zack Wheeler or Aaron Nola aren’t premier starters. Ask the Braves. Fifth seed vs. sixth seed? Nothing to apologize about. I’ll take the fact that Major League Baseball will go 22 years without a repeat champion over the coronations you see in other sports … and in this series, I like the Padres to take the next step.

SIX TO WATCH

(*) Bryce Harper, DH, Phillies: Not only has Harper finally experienced what it means to win in the post-season (his teams were winless in post-season series coming into 2022) but he’s flipped the script on a sub-.200 post-season batting average with 10 hits (six for extra bases) and is coming off an NLDS where he slashed .500/.529/1.063. But hitting the Braves is nothing new for Harper; when he’s healthy, he’s had substantial success against them. The sample size is much smaller against the Padres, understandably, since they play in a different division. Most happily from the Phillies point of view, Harper actually pulled a home run in the win over the Braves — a mammoth 401-foot shot to right-centre off a lefty, Dylan Lee, who’d allowed one hit in 77 previous appearances against a lefty hitter. Harper hit only three homers in 35 regular-season games after coming off the IL (he suffered a thumb fracture on June 25 when he was hit by a pitch from the Padres' Blake Snell) and all were to the opposite field. Harper has three homers in six post-season games and if he has pull power back … look out. Harper, remember, is restricted to DH because he has a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right (throwing) elbow. Yet another reason to be happy the NL finally adopted the DH, eh Phillies fans?

(*) Tim Hill/Luis Garcia/Robert Suarez, RPs, Padres: We can cancel the APB for Josh Hader, thanks. The Padres' closer has been located after getting lost on the way from the Milwaukee Brewers. But it isn’t just Hader who did a number on the Dodgers in the NLDS. All told, the Padres relievers allowed one run in 19 innings against L.A., holding the 111-win team to a .113 opponents average (6-for-53). In fact, until Steve Wilson gave up a run in the seventh inning of Game 4, the Padres bullpen tossed 16 scoreless innings going back to Game of the wild-card series against the Mets. It was the side-winding lefty Hill who struck out Max Muncy and induced Justin Turner to ground out to shortstop to escape a jam created by Wilson, picking up the win. Hill was one of only three relievers this year to allow one homer or fewer over a minimum of 55 innings, joining Amir Garrett of the Kansas City Royals and Reynaldo Lopez of the Chicago White Sox. It was old friend Randal Grichuk, now of the Colorado Rockies, who got him. Toss in righty reliever Robert Suarez, who hasn’t allowed an earned run since the end of August and hasn’t allowed an earned run at Petco Park all season over 26 innings, and Luis Garcia and the bridge to Hader is made of good stuff. Look away, Blue Jays fans: Suarez, Garcia and Hader are averaging 99 miles per hour combined on their fastballs this post-season …

(*) Rhys Hoskins, 1B, Phillies: It wasn’t Jose Bautista, but Rhys Hoskins certainly got his money’s worth with that bat spike in Game 3 of the NLDS, didn’t he? There were better players in that Series but the Phillies and their fans will make the case that Hoskins’ three-run home run in what would turn out to be a 9-1 Phillies win was the biggest hit of the series, coming as it did after the Braves intentionally walked lefty hitting Kyle Schwarber in front of Hoskins, despite the fact that Schwarber was 0-for-17. But Hoskins is still just 4-for-26 out of the No. 2 spot in the Phillies order, and will remain a strategic target for the Padres. His Phillies career has been one of extremes (offensively and defensively) and while he has heard it from the hometown fans for never living up to the hype of his early career, his teammates consider him the closest thing the team has to a spokesman; the guy you go to. On a team no one expected to be here — that might in fact be a team of destiny — you could come up with a worse story than Hoskins …

(*) Austin Nola, C, Padres: You’re probably suspecting that this is a cheap way of squeezing in a mention of Aaron Nola to give the Phillies an extra player to watch — as if I’d be that low! OK: you got me. To a point. Aaron Nola will in fact have a huge say in the Phillies advancing, but his brother is also having a decent post-season, thank you very much. They will be the first set of brothers to meet in the post-season since Sandy Alomar, Jr., and Roberto Alomar faced each other in consecutive years (1996 and 1997) and the Nolas already made history this season when Austin drove in the game-winning run off Aaron on June 24: the first player since 1900 to get the game-winning hit off a brother in what would turn out to be the game's only RBI. Nola has caught all 52 post-season innings for the Padres — despite the fact they’ve carried three catchers — and the pressure on catchers goes up exponentially with each series. Nola is 8-for-21 with two doubles out of the No. 9 spot in the Padres' order, and while it won’t be enough to prevent the Padres from upgrading at the position this off-season — they tried at the trade deadline but, well, not even A.J. Preller gets all he wants — Nola’s game-calling and makeup and old-timey scoutsy strengths will be leaned upon. Look away again, Blue Jays fans (last time, I promise): Nola was acquired from the Seattle Mariners for Ty France and Andres Munoz. Sorry ‘bout that.

(*) Juan Soto, RF, Padres: I’ll see your Bryce Harper and raise you Juan Soto even though it’s pretty clear that Manny Machado is the Jefe in the Padres clubhouse. As we touched on going into the wild-card series, Soto has had a stutter-step start to his Padres career post-trade. But he’s 11-for-38 with a pair of homers against Zack Wheeler for his career and 9-for-39 with three homers and 14 walks against Aaron Nola, and had the hardest-hit ball in play or the second hardest-hit ball in play in three of the four games in the Padres' NLDS win over the Dodgers. It’s tough to escape the idea that a strong post-season will pretty much cement his place with this franchise …

(*)Ranger Suarez, LHP, Phillies: I mean, it’s fun to watch the stars but it’s remarkable how often the crucial moments of games draw attention to relative unknowns. Suarez isn’t Wheeler or Nola. Not even close. But Suarez is scheduled to start Game 3, which leaves him in line to be used on short rest in Game 7 or perhaps make a relief appearance. Suarez was unimpressive in the NLDS, walking five Braves and giving up three hits (including a homer to Travis d’Arnaud) over 3 1/3 innings in Game 1, but in the regular season he was one of the best starters in the Majors against lefty hitting, holding opponents to a slash line of .197/.234/.303. He faced 129 lefty hitters, striking out 24, walking five and allowing two homers, which the Phillies hope could stand him in good stead against the Padres' Juan Soto and two of their post-season clutch hitters: Jake Cronenworth and Trent Grisham. Dig deep and there’s not a great deal to separate these two teams, but the drop off from Wheeler and Nola to Suarez is much more pronounced than, say, the drop off from Yu Darvish and Blake Snell to Padres No. 3 starter Joe Musgrove …

JEFF BLAIR’S PICK: Padres in six.