Phillies playoffs: Schedule, opponent, and everything else you need to know

Phillies center fielder Brandon Marsh celebrates with champagne after the Phillies beat the Houston Astros clinching a spot in the post season on Monday. Read more

For the first time since 2011, the Philadelphia Phillies are headed to the MLB playoffs as a wild-card team.

The Phillies ended their 10-year postseason drought (more than 4,000 days, by radio announcer Scott Franzke’s count) with a 3-0 win over the Houston Astros Monday, fueled by a two-hit masterpiece from pitcher Aaron Nola.

“It’s step one,” Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber said during a break from the celebration. “We deserve it. Enjoy this night. Then, when it comes to that first pitch in the postseason, it’s time to strap it on.”

» READ MORE: The Phillies celebrate (finally) punching their playoff ticket: ‘We’re not done’

Here’s everything you need to know about the Phillies’ playoff schedule, announcers, and the rules in place for the postseason. This will be updated as more information becomes available:

The 2022 MLB playoffs begin Friday with the wild-card round, a best-of-three series that features four teams from the National League and four teams from the American League. The two highest-seeded teams in each league get a bye and face the wild-card winners in the divisional round.

Here are the current seeds:

» READ MORE: ‘This is a long time coming!’ Listen to Phillies playoff calls from Tom McCarthy and Scott Franzke

The Phillies currently hold the third and final wild card spot, and if that stands through the final two games of the season, they’ll face the St. Louis Cardinals in the best-of-three series beginning Friday. Every game of the series would be played in Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis.

The Phillies went 4-3 against the Cardinals this year, who won the NL Central for the first time since 2019 behind the resurgence of 42-year-old slugger Albert Pujols.

If the Phillies manage to surpass the San Diego Padres and move up to the second wild card spot, they would face the New York Mets, who blew a 10½-game lead in the NL East to the Atlanta Braves. The Phillies went just 5-14 against the Mets this season.

The single-elimination wild card game, which began in 2012 and lasted through 2021 (it wasn’t used in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) has been replaced by this new best-of-three format. So there won’t be any play-in games this season.

» READ MORE: A brilliant Aaron Nola clinched the playoffs. He and Zack Wheeler are why the Phillies can win it.

ESPN has the exclusive television rights to all wild-card games this postseason. As a result, all the games will air on ESPN, ESPN2, or ABC.

If the Phillies faces the Cardinals, calling the games will be New York Yankees announcer Michael Kay and former slugger Alex Rodriguez, who loves a good Philadelphia “cheese sandwich.” Alden Gonzalez will report from Busch Stadium.

ESPN’s current Sunday Night Baseball team of Karl Ravech, David Cone, and Eduardo Perez will call the Mets’ wild card series, with Buster Olney reporting from Citi Field in Queens.

While the games won’t air on NBC Sports Philadelphia, they will be carried on 94.1 WIP throughout the Phillies’ playoff run.

» READ MORE: Projecting the Phillies’ playoff roster: Who’s in, who’s out in series vs. Mets or Cardinals

If you want to watch the Phillies during the wild card round, you’ll have to travel, since all games will be played in either St. Louis or New York City.

Both the Cardinals and the Mets have tickets on sale already, but the soonest we’ll know the Phillies opponent is Tuesday night. The Phillies are selling tickets for the National League Divisional Series at Citizens Bank Park, if they manage to make it that far.

There will be no “ghost runners” during this year’s playoffs.

During the regular season, MLB brought back the designated runner, rule, which puts a player on second base to begin each half inning if a game is tied after nine innings. The rule was an attempt to preserve pitching staffs and avoid extra-long regular season games.

But during the playoffs, that rule is out the window. So if any postseason games enter extra innings, you won’t see anyone on second base.

One new rule that will be sticking around in the National League during the playoffs is the universal designated hitter, which MLB made permanent earlier this year.

The Phillies roster will also shrink back down to 26 players. The team can choose any player who was on the 40-man roster or the 60-day injured list by Sept. 1. The Phillies can carry as many as 13 pitchers, which will come in handy if a postseason game turns into a marathon.

Here is the full MLB postseason schedule. This will be updated as more games are announced.

ESPN hasn’t yet released times and channels yet, but looking at posted TV listings, it appears the games will air on Friday at 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. Eastern. The same windows apply for Sunday, but will depend how many third games are necessary (the Eagles play the Arizona Cardinals at 4:25 p.m. Sunday on Fox).

On Saturday, it looks like the game times will be noon, 4 p.m., 7:30 p.m., and 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

Friday there will be three ESPN games and one ABC game. On Saturday there will be two ESPN games and two ESPN2 games. Sunday remains up in the air.

Wild-card round (best of three)