PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies spent August saving their season.
September gets to tell us what they actually saved.
That is the intriguing part of where this team stands as baseball reaches its final month. Philadelphia begins Monday at 77-60, winners of 13 of its last 15 and tied with Chicago atop the National League Wild Card standings.
A team that spent much of the summer looking strangely ordinary now has October positioned directly in front of it.
But there is another number worth knowing.
26-30.
That is the Phillies’ record this season against teams that currently own records of .500 or better. Chicago is 29-23 against those teams. Atlanta is 37-23. Milwaukee is 37-21.
So if anyone wants to know what September is about, there it is.
The Phillies have proven they can recover.
They still have to prove they can consistently beat good baseball teams.
The schedule is about to give them every opportunity.
Beginning Monday night in Arizona, Philadelphia plays 13 consecutive games against clubs involved in postseason races: three against the Diamondbacks, four at home against Atlanta, three against Houston and three more in Atlanta. Later comes Milwaukee. The regular season ends with Tampa Bay.
MLB recently calculated the combined winning percentage of the Phillies’ remaining opponents at .525, the third-toughest remaining schedule in baseball at the time.
That isn't an inconvenience.
It might be the best thing that could happen to them.
Because there has been something unresolved about the Phillies all season, even as their record has improved.
Consider Chicago.
The Cubs and Phillies enter Monday with identical 77-60 records. But there is almost nothing identical about how they got there.
Chicago has scored 725 runs and allowed 598, a plus-127 run differential. Philadelphia has scored 622 and allowed 592.
That is plus-30.
Same record.
Ninety-seven runs of separation.
Run differential does not win a Wild Card Series. Zack Wheeler can. Cristopher Sánchez can. Jesús Luzardo can.
But differential tells a story about the previous five months. Chicago has generally played like a club capable of separating itself from opponents. Philadelphia has spent much more of its season living on thin margins.
And if the season ended today, those differences would become more than statistical curiosities.
Chicago would own the higher Wild Card seed because it holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Cubs won six of seven against the Phillies this season, including all four games at Wrigley Field.
That would mean Philadelphia's postseason begins in Chicago.
And stays there.
Under MLB’s current format, all three games of a best-of-three Wild Card Series are played in the higher seed’s ballpark.
Game 1 at Wrigley.
Game 2 at Wrigley.
Game 3, if necessary, at Wrigley.
Now the 26-30 record against .500-or-better opponents starts to become more than an interesting split.
It becomes the question.
Can this version of the Phillies beat those teams three nights out of five? Can they win when Wheeler does not have his best fastball? Can the lineup produce against October pitching? Can the baserunning mistakes that nearly cost them Saturday in Anaheim disappear when every out has twice the value?
August supplied encouraging answers.
The Phillies went 20-7. Wheeler rebounded Sunday after a miserable stretch. Sánchez continues to pitch like one of the best starters in the league. Luzardo has been dominant. Andrew Painter has shown signs that his stuff may finally be translating into reliable major-league innings.
There is plenty here to believe in.
But September will remove the easy arguments.
Arizona begins Monday at 73-65 and is fighting for its postseason life. Atlanta is 82-55 and owns a plus-117 differential. Houston enters the month above .500 and leading the AL West. Milwaukee is 85-52 with a plus-177 differential. Tampa Bay is 82-54.
The Phillies will not have to imagine what playoff-caliber baseball looks like.
They are about to play it repeatedly.
And perhaps that is what makes this final month more compelling than the standings themselves.
Philadelphia has built enough cushion that simply reaching October is no longer the only standard.
The Phillies have been there before.
The question is whether this particular team is built to stay there.
A 77-60 record says maybe.
A 26-30 record against winning teams says there is still work to do.
The next four weeks get to settle the argument.
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