Harper and Machado encourage Phillies-Braves duel in the National

Bryce Harper or Manny Machado. One of them will be in the World Series.

Harper and the Philadelphia Phillies will meet Machado and the San Diego Padres in a National League championship series that kicks off Tuesday night at Petco Park and features wild-card teams that didn’t have any kind of complex to knock down. to rivals that exceeded 100 wins during the regular season.

“Honestly, we’ve got the two best teams facing each other, and we’re going to have a really fun week,” said Machado, whose creditable MVP campaign propelled the Padres in the absence of star shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr.

After totaling 89 wins, the Padres relied on the serenity of veteran manager Bob Melvin, in his first year at the helm of the club. They went to New York to eliminate the Mets — winners of 101 games — in the wild-card round. Then, they left the Los Angeles Dodgers on the road, the best team in the majors after setting a franchise record with 111 wins, taking the last three duels after losing the first on the road.

The Phillies added 87 wins and were sixth in the circuit seeding. They dispatched the St. Louis Cardinals, champions of the Central Division in the wild card phase, and then struck down the Atlanta Braves, defending World Series champions and who won first place in the East after a 101-win season , in the divisional round.

That catapulted the Phillies and their fiery bats to San Diego, where bright sunshine and balmy temperatures prevailed during practice Monday after a rare October downpour drenched the stadium during the thrilling series-clinching Game 4 against the Dodgers last night. of Saturday.

“How come people wrote us off?” said Harper, who missed two months after suffering a broken left thumb on his hand after being hit by a pitch from San Diego’s Blake Snell at Petco Park on the 25th. of June. “I think there was talk that Los Angeles, or the Braves or the Mets were going to win because those three teams were so dynamic and because they had great results in the regular season.”

“I think it’s going to be a tremendous series,” Harper added. “It will be really fun. We come with a lot of desire as a team given the opportunity to get a victory from here and travel home”.

Right-hander Zack Wheeler appears as the Phillies’ starter in Game 1. Yu Darvish, 36, will take the mound for the Padres. Darvish would have pitched on three days’ rest if the Padres wound up playing a Game 5 at Dodger Stadium on Sunday. But they eliminated the Dodgers with a five-run rally in the seventh act for a 5-3 win in Game 4.

Much attention will be focused on Harper and Machado. They were partners in the U18 United States team that in 2009 won a Pan American tournament in Venezuela. Harper was the first pick in the 2010 draft, taken by Washington. Machado was the third, selected by Baltimore.

They debuted in the majors in 2012, separated by a span of three months. Harper did it when he was 19 years old. Machado made the big team shortly after turning 20. Seven years later, the pair signed mega-contracts as the top free agents on the market leading up to the 2019 season. Machado signed a $300 million, 10-year deal with San Diego; Harper ended up in Philadelphia with $330 million and 13 years.

“We were the two most wanted free agents,” Machado recalled. “And he went to a city eager to win a championship again, and I went to a city that has never won a championship. Here we are a few years later, we made it, contributing enormously to our teams.”

“It will be fun. He brings a lot of energy. He is one of the best in baseball,” he added.

Harper noted that Machado “is an extraordinary talent.”

“He’s one of the best defenders in baseball. He has a very good swing. He has had a tremendous year. I am very excited to be able to share the pitch with him.”

The Padres will contest an NL championship series for the first time since 1998, only to be swept by the New York Yankees in the World Series.

The Phillies made the playoffs for the first time since 2011, the end of a five-postseason cycle that included the World Series title in 2008 and losses in the 2009 World Series and 2010 championship series.