Phillies vs. Braves series odds, prediction: Philadelphia is a live underdog

After dramatically sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals on the road, the Philadelphia Phillies will take a step up in weight class against the Atlanta Braves.

The Phillies are the smallest underdog in the Divisional Round, but they’re still sitting at +158 to win the series at FanDuel at the time of writing, which implies they have a 38.8% implied win probability.

Is Philadelphia live at that price?

Phillies +158

Perhaps no team in baseball was running hotter than the Atlanta Braves entering October. Not only did Atlanta go 78-34 from June 1 onwards, but they also erased a 10.5-game deficit in the NL East with a sweep of the Mets to win the division.

While there wasn’t really anything that flukey about Atlanta’s 101-61 record (according to MLB’s expected Win-Loss metric, the Braves should have finished with 100 wins), it doesn’t mean that Atlanta’s form coming into the postseason isn’t causing some inflation on the price.

» READ MORE: Phillies World Series odds on the move after advancing to NLDS

A good argument can be made that the Braves are being overvalued against the Phillies in a best-of-5 format. The longer the series, the more the talent gap and difference in depth starts to tilt the scales, but in a race to three anything can happen and that naturally benefits the underdog.

And this underdog in particular profiles well. That mostly comes down to Philadelphia’s 1-2 punch in its starting rotation. Although Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola won’t come into play until Games 2 and 3, that doesn’t mean the Phillies’ dual-aces won’t have a significant impact on this series.

Something to keep in mind: because Wheeler and Nola will not factor in Game 1 and the Braves will throw their ace, Max Fried, against Ranger Suarez, there’s a decent chance the Phillies find themselves in an 0-1 hole out of the gates (the Braves are -190 favorites on Tuesday). That will give bettors a chance to buy back on Philadelphia’s series price (and other futures prices) ahead of the Wheeler-Nola games and get some big numbers.

Atlanta’s offense put up the stronger numbers this season, but the difference between the two clubs isn’t so significant that you’re asking the Phillies to do something outlandish to keep pace with the Braves, especially in a best-of-5 series when either offense can go hot or cold in the blink of an eye. Add in the fact that Philadelphia boasts two pitchers that can hang with any offense in the MLB and you start to see a path to an upset for the upstart Phillies.

» READ MORE: Full sports betting coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Inquirer is not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site. We provide this information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only.