After a 4-3 Phillies win on Wednesday afternoon, Game 3 shifts to Truist Park on Thursday night at 8:00 PM, and both clubs are preparing to throw just about everything they have at the matchup.
The Phillies are expected to hand the ball to Aaron Nola, according to multiple reports. The staff met after Game 2 to sort through the possibilities, and the plan now appears to be the longest tenured Phillie taking the start.
“Hearing Phillies will start Aaron Nola tonight vs. Braves opener Ray Kerr, a lefty. Always subject to change but that’s the plan as of this AM.”
Nola gets a chance to keep rewriting a 2026 season that looked bleak at one point. On June 29 against the Pirates, he was tagged for eight earned runs and sat at a 6.04 ERA.
Since the beginning of July, though, he has worked to a 3.39 ERA over 16 starts. Thursday will also be his 44th appearance against Atlanta across the regular season and postseason.
How long Nola stays in the game is anyone’s guess. Zack Wheeler is expected to follow him in relief in some capacity, though Wheeler has pitched on three days rest only once in his MLB career - Game 7 of the 2023 NLCS against the Diamondbacks.
Philadelphia’s best-case setup is to squeeze eight combined innings out of Nola and Wheeler, then turn things over to Jhoan Duran in the ninth. Jesus Luzardo, who threw 77 pitches on Tuesday, is another arm who could enter the picture.
Andrew Painter is also a possibility after tossing three scoreless innings to close out Wednesday’s win, which he called the biggest three innings of his life. Painter said he let the Phillies know he’s available if needed in Game 3, and joked that Luzardo would tell him that he’s 23 years old, so he’s good to go every day.
Atlanta’s side looks a little less star-driven, but it should still be a bullpen-heavy night. Left-hander Ray Kerr is the favorite to start, possibly as an opener, after throwing 6.1 scoreless innings against the Phillies in September over two outings.
If Kerr doesn’t get the assignment, Brent Suter could be the choice instead. Grant Holmes is expected to cover the bulk of the innings, though nothing is locked in for a game like this until the first pitch is actually thrown.
Holmes went 10-6 this season with a 3.44 ERA, and he posted a 3.05 ERA against the Phillies in 20.2 innings across four starts. Trea Turner has handled him best, going 4 for 11 (.364) with a homer and two RBIs in his career. Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, and J.T Realmuto have also each homered against Holmes at some point, but the Phillies as a team are hitting only .227 against him.
The only real certainty here is the volume of arms. Both teams are lining up for a parade of pitchers, and in a do-or-die game, that’s the price of surviving until tomorrow.
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Painters outing did more than protect one tense victory. It also gave the Phillies a rare kind of October insurance, the sort that can reshape how a team views its pitching depth when the games get tighter and the margins thinner. Several key pitch calls were challenged and overturned in Painters favor along the way, and by the end of it the biggest playoff worry around Philadelphia suddenly looked a lot less urgent. [Read more 🡒]