Still one of MLB's best rosters, Phillies' World Series-or-bust season set to begin originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The end to incessant speculation and crystal-balling has nearly reached its end — Phillies Opening Day is about 24 hours away, 4:05 p.m. Thursday at Nationals Park.

It’s a now-or-never year for the Phillies, who have maintained the same core for four seasons and are unlikely to return the same cast of characters if it can’t make progress in 2025.

The offseason feels especially long when it follows a finish as disappointing as this group’s October 2024. One of the beautiful things about baseball is the opportunity to bounce back from a tough loss the next day, and the most difficult losses are unfortunately also the ones that send you home for six months.

But there was renewed optimism this spring in Clearwater. If you were to stack all 30 rosters against one another, the Phillies would be somewhere between second and fifth in any logical ranking and it’s hard to put them lower than third.

Having the roster to do it is one part. Staying healthy is another. Getting hot at the right time — as the Phillies did for stretches in October 2022 and 2023 and the Mets did last fall — is another.

We’ve seen the ceiling of this offense. We’ve seen the Phillies beat teams 10-0 in the playoffs, homer five times off of a starting pitcher. But the floor needs to be higher when hitters aren’t totally locked in, when the ball isn’t bouncing their way. Thus the annual emphasis of controlling the strike zone and utilizing the whole field.

On to some specifics:

The rotation

The Phillies’ rotation in D.C. will be Zack Wheeler on Thursday, Jesus Luzardo in Game 2 Saturday and Aaron Nola Sunday.

Cristopher Sanchez will start Monday’s home opener against the Rockies. Wheeler will start Wednesday, the fifth game of the season, on an extra day of rest. Taijuan Walker will start the next day to wrap up the Phils’ first home series.

And from there, the Phillies would likely go on turn until Ranger Suarez is ready, with Walker following Wheeler because of the early flip-flop.

The lineup

The Phillies face Nationals left-hander Mackenzie Gore on Opening Day. He has reverse platoon splits; lefties have hit .279 with an .816 OPS, righties have hit .253 with a .753 OPS.

As a result, there might be five lefties in the Phillies’ lineup against a left-handed starter: Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Max Kepler, Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh.

The Phillies will play Kepler every day in left field. They’ve said they want to and will play Marsh more in center against lefties. But both will need to hold their own against same-handed pitching to show it’s not worth starting Edmundo Sosa or Johan Rojas over them more than occasionally.

As for the top of the order, the much-debated Schwarber vs. Trea Turner leadoff topic might conclude with the boring answer of “both.” Manager Rob Thomson has discussed potentially leading Turner off against a lefty, Schwarber against a righty.

The upside of moving Schwarber down a few spots is that two-thirds of his home runs as a Phillie have been solo shots, and the likelihood of him batting with men on base would be significantly higher a spot or two after Harper and Alec Bohm than a spot or two after the eight- and nine-hitters.

The downside of moving Schwarber down a few spots is that he led the NL in walks last season and had a .366 on-base percentage. Turner’s OBP as a Phillie has been .328. That needs to increase.

The injured list

Suarez will begin the year on the IL because of his back. The Phillies don’t think it’s a severe injury, but it’s another back issue for a pitcher who has dealt with several. He’ll need a few weeks to build back up once he’s throwing again, so Walker has a spot in the rotation for a little while.

Weston Wilson suffered a Grade 2 oblique strain the day before spring training games began and was expected to miss six weeks. This is about the four-week mark. Once Wilson is ready to ramp back up, the Phillies will let him find his timing at Triple A. He has a minor-league option remaining so he doesn’t need to be activated onto the big-league roster right when his rehab assignment is over if the Phils feel he does need more time. But his skill set is one they could sure use — right-handed bat with pop and speed who could realistically play six different positions.

Matt Strahm dealt with a left shoulder impingement early in camp and tore a fingernail packing his bags to leave Clearwater, but it sounds like he’ll be ready to go for Opening Day.

The division

The Braves will be better. Ronald Acuña Jr. is expected back from his ACL injury in May. Spencer Strider could be back in late April or May. Those two returns alone are equivalent to adding two $300 million players in free agency.

The 2024 Braves were ravaged by injuries and underperformance from players like Ozzie Albies, Sean Murphy and Matt Olson. Chris Sale and Marcell Ozuna vastly exceeded expectations. Overall, the Braves should be a 92-to-95-win team. Same for the Phillies.

The Mets are loaded, too, but have more questions on their pitching staff. There’s talent and upside, but their season-opening rotation projects as Clay Holmes, Kodai Senga, Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning and David Peterson. While they’ll get Sean Manaea (oblique strain) and Frankie Montas (lat strain) back at some point, it still doesn’t look like a Top-10 rotation. The bullpen is just OK behind Edwin Diaz, whose fastball averaged 95 mph this spring compared to 97 previously. Maybe things break right in New York, maybe they’re shopping aggressively for pitching in June and July. The offense, specifically the top of their order, is going to do damage.

The NL East race should be tight all year, unlike 2024 when the Phillies led by at least five games every day after May 19.

The schedule

The first two series are on the lighter side against the Nationals and Rockies. Colorado has the inside track to being the National League’s worst team again this year.

That’s offset by the next two series, at home vs. the Dodgers and in Atlanta. Two fun early-season tests.

The Phillies see every team in the division in April, then face only the Braves in May around Memorial Day. They end the season with 20 NL East games in their final 35.

There are three West Coast trips — May 19-25 in Colorado and Sacramento, July 7-13 in San Francisco and San Diego leading into the All-Star break and September 15-21 in Arizona and Los Angeles.

The Phillies are, fortunately, middle of the pack in travel miles this year after going everywhere from Seattle to London in 2024.

The expectations

It’s World Series or bust, even with how much the Dodgers loaded up. Beating L.A. will be a monumental task for any team this season because the Dodgers don’t just have the superstars atop the lineup, they now also have a deep and high-ceiling rotation and three top-tier late-inning relievers in Tanner Scott, Blake Treinen and Kirby Yates.

But the Phillies are probably the most talented, deepest and well-balanced team after the Dodgers, in either league. Some clubs have better lineups, some have better overall pitching staffs, but the Dodgers and Phillies have the best combinations.

The Phils beat them five out of six games last year, which means nothing other than they know they have it in them. The timing of the two regular-season series — so early in April, then right before the regular season ends — should only add to the drama.

Melvin wants Giants to attack challenge of tough NL West in 2025 originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO — The memories probably will come flooding back when Buster Posey steps foot in Great American Ball Park on Thursday. It was home to one of the great comebacks in postseason history, sparked by Hunter Pence’s rousing speech in the visiting clubhouse. Posey’s grand slam in Game 5 of the National League Division Series in 2012 capped the comeback, which led to a second title in three years. 

That comeback was a reminder that anything can happen in a short series. If you catch fire for a week, or even just for 27 innings, you can exceed expectations. Get everything clicking for a few weeks at exactly the right time and you might find yourself in a parade.

The problem this season for the Giants, now run by Posey, won’t be imagining what they can do in a short series. It’ll be getting to one in the first place.

Entering the season, just about everyone will pick them to finish fourth in their own division. That’s not a path to the postseason, which means they’ll have to vault one of three contenders ahead of them. Nobody is going to catch the reigning champs, who added Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, and will get Shohei Ohtani back on the mound in a couple of months. The Arizona Diamondbacks are a popular dark horse pick in the NL, and they now have Corbin Burnes alongside Zac Gallen. The San Diego Padres had a messy offseason, but the top of their rotation is strong and the lineup features Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill. 

The NL West might be the best division in baseball. And Bob Melvin wants his team to embrace that.

“You have to be inspired to play against teams like that,” he said on Wednesday’s “Giants Talk” podcast. “The Dodgers are probably as close to a super team as you have right now in baseball, but you know what, you get motivated to play against those guys, and then the rivalry comes into play, too. That even inspires you more to play good against those good teams, and if you beat them — which we expect to stand up against all these teams — especially with the younger guys, the confidence grows.

“Now all of a sudden you look forward to playing in those tight games, packed houses at our place, packed houses at Dodger Stadium. And you gain a lot of confidence from that. We’re not going to back down to anybody. We know our division is tough, but it’s kind of cool that we’re playing a lot of good teams in our division. We feel like we’re going to stack up well.”

Spring is a time to be that optimistic. It’s also a time to set the tone, and that’s what Posey attempted to do when he spoke to the full team at the start of camp. Four years ago, Posey returned from a year off and encouraged his teammates to make the division title their first goal. That surprised the coaching staff, but the Giants went out and won 107 games, one more than Los Angeles. This spring, Posey again reminded the players that the first priority is always to win your division.

“I don’t think the years after (2021) we had the same message. I don’t know why,” Logan Webb said. “I can’t explain why, but I think getting back to that, if you go back to that year, I think (the projections) probably were 80 wins. It’s kind of the same thing right now. There’s not a lot of people who think we can do it (but) winning is contagious. You win a couple and they start piling up and all of a sudden you win 107 games.

“I don’t necessarily think we should shoot for a number. It’s just go out there and play as hard as we can every single day. I think when you do that, good things happen, and you’re fighting and scrapping until the end to try to win the division. Once you do that, you give yourself a chance to try to win a World Series.”

This year’s projections again have the Giants in that 80-win range. FanGraphs currently has them going 81-81, with a 29 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 2.4 percent chance of winning the West. The Dodgers are overwhelming favorites, given an 86 percent chance of winning the division, by far the highest in baseball. They’re 2-0 already after starting the season in Japan, and nobody would be surprised if they go wire-to-wire en route to 110-plus wins.

FanGraphs has the Diamondbacks as a playoff team but the Padres just percentage points ahead of the Giants. PECOTA has the Giants well behind all three, with a win projection of just 77. Its calculations have all three teams ahead of the Giants projected to make the postseason.

“Our division is no joke,” Matt Chapman said. 

But, he added …

“There are four teams that could win any division, I think.”

Chapman is one of the biggest reasons why Webb, who has experienced the postseason just once in his career, is confident that winning ways are returning. He noted that when he looks back at 2021, he realizes how important it was for someone like Posey to lead the charge. In Chapman and Willy Adames, the Giants feel they have similar leaders. 

“I think getting back to that is really important,” Webb said.

The staff ace will take the ball Thursday, but it’ll be some time before the Giants get to test themselves against the three contenders in the West. They open with a trip to Cincinnati and Houston, and the first homestand brings the Seattle Mariners and another round with the Reds. 

The Giants don’t face an NL West team until late April, and that’s just a two-game trip to Petco Park. In May, they’ll see the Colorado Rockies and Diamondbacks, but it’s not until June 13 that they get a first look at this version of the Dodgers. The best team in baseball doesn’t come to Oracle Park until July.

If the Giants truly can surprise the industry and hang on, they’ll get a chance to prove themselves against the NL West’s best when it matters most. In September, they have a two-week stretch when they play only the Diamondbacks and Dodgers. 

There’s a long, long way to go until the Giants get there, and the start of their season isn’t easy by any means, even if they are avoiding their division. The second road trip includes series against the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies, and they also will see the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers early on.

The NL West discussions will be put on the back burner, at least for a few weeks. Melvin hopes his group gets off to a good start and gets used to winning, which will allow them to take more confidence into all those divisional battles. After that, you never know. He pointed out that he was part of a Padres team that knocked off the Dodgers in October, and a year later the Diamondbacks did the same thing.

“Last year was probably the first year in quite some time that — with the Yankees and Dodgers — two big spenders were actually in the World Series,” Melvin said. “It doesn’t guarantee anything, and with as many teams that can get into the playoffs now, a lot of it is who is playing well towards the end of the season.”

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World Series champion Dodgers to visit White House next month originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

In World Series tradition, the Los Angeles Dodgers have accepted their invitation to visit President Donald Trump and White House next month on April 7.

In a social media post Tuesday the team wrote it “look[s] forward to visiting the White House and celebrating our title.”

Select players and personnel will visit Capitol Hill the following day on April 8.

Franchise shortstop Mookie Betts told reporters Tuesday he was undecided if he would visit the White House with the team and needed to talk it over with his family first.

Betts did not visit the White House in 2019 with the Boston Red Sox following their World Series victory during Trump’s first term. He did join the Dodgers on their 2021 White House visit while Joe Biden was president.

The visit will coincide with a three-game series against the Washington Nationals.

The New York Rangers couldn’t salvage an opportunity to gain ground in the playoff picture as they lost 3-1 to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night. 

Through the first 20 minutes of play, the Kings dominated possession time and the Rangers only recorded two shots, but the score remained 0-0. 

J.T. Miller opened up the scoring in the second period to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead. Unfortunately for the Blueshirts, they did not take advantage of that lead.

The Rangers committed three penalties in the second frame, resulting in two goals for Los Angeles. 

The Kings won the special teams battle and that’s what ultimately led to the Rangers’ downfall. 

Igor Shesterkin displayed yet another valiant effort, recording 30 saves on 32 shots, which is why his teammates feel like they let him down in a way. 

“He was spectacular, kept us in the game,” Vincent Trocheck said of Shesterkin. “It almost goes unappreciated since you almost expect every night out of him, but he’s obviously a world-class goalie and shows it night in and night out.”

The Rangers feel like they did enough to win the game. However, there’s a sense of frustration with the losses continuing to pile up, especially at this point of the year when every point is critical. 

“It gets tiring because I feel like over the last few weeks we’ve been playing some good hockey, but we are still losing,” Mika Zibanejad said. “Find a way to lose. It’s hard to look at the positives.”

The Rangers will be back in action on Friday night against the Anaheim Ducks.