Padres and Phillies will play each other in the NLCS, a breakdown

The National League Championship Series kicks off tonight. I'm going to break down the matchup for you a little bit, let you know what to be on the lookout for. It is a series of firsts. It's the first time the Padres and the Phillies have ever faced each other in the NLCS. We've never had this matchup before. We've never had a matchup of two teams that won less than 90 games in the regular season in the NLCS. We've never had a matchup with two brothers whose last name, Nola, in the NLCS. Had a bunch of other brothers. Never Nola brothers. First times. First time we've had two teams whose nickname, I was going to say mascot, but nickname starts with the same letter. The Padres and the Phillies. Their mascots are different though. Their mascots are way different. The Philadelphia Phillies have been around forever. They're the oldest team that's been in the same city with the same name in all major U.S. sports. They've been around since like 1883 or something like that. A baseball player who invented a baseball, had a lawyer patent a baseball, said, hey, let's get a team together. They got a team. They named themselves the Quakers. Then said, ooh, that kind of stinks. Let's name ourselves the Philadelphians. And the headline writer says, that kind of stinks. It's really long. So the Phillies they became. And the owner said, it lets them know who we are and where we're from. Which is true. It does. It'd be like the New York New Yorkers. Or the San Diego San Diegans. But they're not the San Diego San Diegans. They're the San Diego Padres. They've been in MLB since 1969 when the league expanded. They were a minor league team for like 30 years before then. They are named after the guys who came over from Spain and converted all the natives. And quite frankly, bad guys. All right. Let's get into the baseball. Here's what you need to know. The Padres, they got a lot of goose stuff going on. If you haven't been tuning in to the postseason, you're going to tune in now. And you're like, why are there all these goose things all over the stadium? Well, when they were playing game one against the Dodgers, this ugly goose flew on the field and just kind of sat there. Got a front row ticket. Didn't pay for it. If you want a really good ticket, SeatGeek. Code JOHNBOYPLAYOFFS. Gets you 10% off. Doesn't matter if you've used it already or not used it. You can use it again. You can use it for concerts, for other sports. JOHNBOYPLAYOFFS. Code 10. The goose used it. He got front row seats in the outfield. And then the Dodgers, they picked him up, threw him in a trash can. Padres said, whoa. Why'd you throw that goose out? We liked it. So now they're goosing all the time. They got goose stuff nonstop. The Padres also kind of do this thing where they point and then head tilt. I don't know what that's about. We'll have to look at the comments section to keep you up to date if that means anything or stems from anything. The Phillies, they do a tip of the hat. Classic. So there you go. Those are the first things you need to be on the lookout for as well as, like I said in the beginning, there's two brothers playing against each other. That's a cool storyline. Their dad, he's going to be nervous. I wonder if he's going to be wearing the two jerseys again. That's what he did last time they played. Tough time to be a dad. Both your sons in the NLCS. Brutal. We also got Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, two kids that came into the league at 19 years old. Phenoms, free agents at 26 years old. Went to these two teams for the long haul. Got paid big money. That's a fun storyline. Also, that's Soto. He's been struggling a little bit, but I love Soto. I love the Soto shuffle. I'm all about it. Bryce Harper's hot. Super hot. Nice beard, good hair, and hitting the ball like crazy. Absolutely crazy this postseason. The Phillies, what they need to do is they need to get the runners on base for Harper at bat so the Padres can't pitch around him. They have to come after him. And then when he does get hits, run score. That wasn't happening for the first couple games, but the last two games, Brees Hoskins, Schwarber, they started to get things going, started to get on base. So if they're getting on base and Harper's hitting them in, that's kind of the recipe for the Phillies. The Phillies had seven innings where they scored multiple runs. The Padres only had three. The Phillies had like five innings where they scored three or more runs. Now, they didn't face the same pitching that the Padres faced. The Padres had to go through the Mets and then the Dodgers. Two really good pitching staffs. They played close games. They had timely hits. They scored in a lot of innings, a lot of solo run innings. But all that adds up to getting the ball to the bullpen, winning the game. Padres in close games. Phillies have been winning big games. Phillies with the bats. Padres with the pitching and the defense and the timely hits. Phillies not so much with the defense. Be on the lookout for that. It's a team where balls in play can hurt them a little bit. I like the Padres' defense a lot. Throughout the season, I've been talking about how I like their defense. I thought they were sharp and crisp and fun and fast and all of that. So, I'm pretty into that. Other thing these two teams have in common right now is the 8-hole hitters have been going absolutely crazy. Gene Segura for the Phillies. Trent Grisham for the Padres. Both down in the 8-hole but hitting the crap out of the ball. Trent Grisham has a .381 batting average. Gene Segura has a .389 batting average. Grisham has a .519 on base percentage. That's crazy. And Segura a .476 so far in the postseason. So, I'm interested to see if they get shuffled in the lineup. If you get guys ahead of them, the Padres, they shuffle him because the middle of their lineup kind of dying a little bit. They haven't gotten anything out of their D.H.'s who they rotate, Bell and Drury. So, we'll see. We'll see. One little tidbit I found interesting when I was looking at stuff is that Brandon Marsh, who was the hero in one of the games for the Phillies in the Divisional Series, was one of the best hitters this season against split-finger fastballs. Like that. He had nine hits against the splitter, which tied for the most in Major League Baseball. And he's going up against Hugh Darvish in Game 1 who does throw splitters to lefty batters. He's thrown 11 splitters so far this postseason. Zero have been put in play. But Marsh likes hitting the splitter. Nine hits so far. So, when Marsh steps to the plate against Hugh Darvish, maybe watch out. See if he throws a split-finger fastball. Kind of goes in, in, in, and drops a little bit. Like a changeup, but still some speed to it. I don't know. Could be something. Could be nothing. The Padres didn't hit that well against fastballs. They don't grade out that well, while the Phillies grade out just a little above average, a little below average. And the best fastball you're going to see is Josh Hader, who's been closing out games for the Padres. Midseason trade. Kind of died a little bit. Was going through something. That's over with. He's dominant as ever September into the postseason. He leads the postseason with three saves right now, I believe. He's striking out. He struck out seven, over four, and a third. Scoreless. And he's just kind of got an iconic motion and slider. He even dropped a changeup in one of these games earlier. He doesn't throw a lot. Kind of just badass. So, there's other stuff to watch out for, obviously. But I don't want to inundate you too much.