Division rivals meet up in the National League Division Series, as we’ll see the Phillies and Braves to start this round at 1:07 p.m. ET on Tuesday and then Padres vs. Dodgers to finish up the first day at 9:37 p.m. ET.
The higher seeds coming off of the bye are big favorites in each series, but we saw three underdogs advance from the Wild Card Round and anything is possible in a small sample size. These two series are loaded with storylines as the Braves start off their title defense and the Padres and Dodgers, who were supposed to duke it out in the regular season, have a lot of big-name talent going head-to-head.
The shortest favorite of the NLDS is the Braves, which strikes me as an interesting thought. The Phillies were the last team to clinch a playoff berth and had to fend off a deeply-flawed Brewers team to do so. It took an epic ninth-inning comeback in Game 1 and then a grind of a 2-0 game to dispose of the Cardinals.
The Braves have arguably been the hottest team in baseball since the start of June. Things started very slow for Atlanta at 23-27, but they hit a soft patch in the schedule and promptly went on a 14-game winning streak to go from 10.5 back in the division to just four games back in the span of 15 days. Atlanta only spent five days in sole possession of first place, but won the season series over the Mets and held the tiebreaker that sent them to the Wild Card Round.