Phillies magic number update: How Philadelphia can still avoid an all-time collapse

On Sept. 1, the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks for their sixth straight win. They were charging hard on the Atlanta Braves in the NL East, and their odds of nabbing at least a Wild Card spot stood just north of 99 percent. And yet, entering the final day of the regular season, Don Mattingly's team finds themselves in need of a win to feel good about their chances of making it to the playoffs — thanks to a month-long collapse that could go down as one of the worst in modern memory if Philly doesn't figure out a way to pull out of their nose dive at the last possible minute.

The bad news is that this is simply not a very good baseball team right now, not that I have to remind Phillies fans of that fact. Their 12-1 loss to the Rays on Saturday night — a loss in which they were showered with boos, and not unfairly — was their fourth in a row and six in eight games, and what seemed like a waltz into the playoffs has now become anything but. The good news is that this team somehow still controls its own destiny in Game 162; here's everything to know about Philly's magic number, how they can still make it to October and what their outlook might be if they do manage to sneak in.

Phillies magic number and clinching scenarios: Bryce Harper and Co. still control their own destiny

Per MLB.com, the formula to determine a magic number is such: Games remaining +1 - (Losses by second place team - losses by first place team). For our purposes, the formula would be 1 + 1 - (75-74). Two minus one is obviously one, and that's Phily's magic number entering the final day of the regular season.

This means that the Phillies need to either win their game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday afternoon OR get a Diamondbacks loss against the San Diego Padres. But since Arizona holds the head-to-head tiebreaker (they split the season series, but the D-backs would get in by virtue of a superior record in divisional games), a Phillies loss combined with a Diamondbacks win would send Arizona on to October — and send Philadelphia home for a long, cold offseason.

That's a pretty grim picture considering where things stood just a few weeks ago. But the fact remains that all the Phillies need to do to punch their ticket to October is win a single game, at home, against a Rays team that's already clinched everything it can clinch and has nothing more to play for.

Can Phillies stop their skid against the Rays on Sunday?

They'll certainly have the right man on the mound, as ace Zack Wheeler will get the start against Tampa on Sunday. Wheeler has been his typically excellent self when healthy this season, and he's been particularly nails of late, with a 1.71 ERA in his last five starts. He's allowed one or fewer runs in four of those five outings, while pitching at least into the sixth every time. Facing a Rays lineup that will likely be giving some key players rest on the season's final day, it would be a shock if the righty doesn't put Philly in position to win.

Then again, it might not matter if this team can't score runs. That's been the main problem over this nightmarish stretch, as just about every big name in Philly's lineup — from Bryce Harper to Kyle Schwarber to Trea Turner — has gone into the tank at once. The Rays will be sending ace Nick Martinez to the mound on Sunday, though he likely won't get pushed too hard as Tampa looks to set its rotation for the ALDS next weekend. Can the Phillies high-priced bats finally wake up?

Where Phillies playoff collapse would rank among the worst in recent MLB history

In short, pretty high! Philly's playoff odds stood at nearly 89 percent as recently as Friday. Per Jon Becker at FanGraphs, no team has ever had odds so high and still managed to miss the playoffs in the history of their daily odds database, which dates back to 2014.

Again, this team was seven clear in the loss column on Sept. 1! It's not quite as bad as, say, the 2011 Red Sox, which saw a nine-game Wild Card lead at the start of September evaporate. But to put this in perspective: The 2007 Mets, a team that Phillies fans love to dunk on nearly two decades later, also held a seven-game lead in the NL East at one point in the season's final month.

That's the kind of collapse we're talking about here, one that would instantly rank among the handful of worst in the 21st century. And even if Philly does manage to avert abject disaster, the vibes right now are such that it would be hard to rally for a Red October.

Phillies playoff path would be a gauntlet even if they do get in

Even if the Phillies do manage to sneak into October on Sunday, it's hard to feel great about the general trajectory right now. An offense this inept figures to have very little chance of making a deep run, and that's before you even consider the road Philly would have to travel to make it to the World Series.

This recent skid has locked them into the No. 6 seed, which would mean a three-game Wild Card series in Atlanta against the Braves beginning on Tuesday — a series for which they almost certainly wouldn't have Wheeler available until at least Game 3 (and even that would be on short rest). With Jesus Luzardo already on the IL, the Phillies would need to take two out of three in Truist Park with some combination of Cristopher Sanchez, Andrew Painter and ... Aaron Nola? That's hardly a rosy picture.

And if they do somehow make it out of that series alive, their reward will be traveling to Los Angeles to take on the Dodgers in the NLDS. Good luck with that.

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