There was a dream before this series. The Braves were on a roll, the Phillies had been experiencing their own version of malaise for about two months, and you could blink and see the spark of a sweep, or, failing that, at least the glimmer of a three-game division deficit heading into the final four weeks of play. But dreams are dreams for a reason, and the Braves’ sonorous slumber was, perhaps predictably, shattered on the jagged rocks of reality, both by their own persistent inability to understand how pitching effectiveness works and by the particularly unruly pitching personality of one Zack Wheeler.

At this point, the Braves have largely moved on from a potential Phillies loss and their own anger, but there’s still plenty of work to do: The Mets are now only two games behind, and the Braves still need to win games to secure a playoff spot. On top of that, the Padres and Diamondbacks have suddenly stopped trying to win a trillion games in a row, so the Braves are as far behind (two games) against each of those teams as they are ahead of the Mets.

Which brings us to today’s game, where Spencer Schwellenbach will try to help the island of misfit toys, the Atlanta team, to a tie in the series. If they succeed, it will mean that while the Braves lost their winning streak yesterday, at least their streak of not losing a series is no longer intact and has been extended to six wins. If they don’t succeed, then that sucks.

At this point, you probably know all about Schwellenbach, but if not, he’s basically been absurdly good. He comes into this game with an ERA of 88, a FIP of 78 and an xFIP of 76, which translates to 2.1 fWAR in just 87 innings from 15 starts. That’s over 4 fWAR on a 30-start pace and almost 5 fWAR on a 200-inning pace, not that he’s going to match any of those. Since his debut, he’s 16th (!!!) in pitching fWAR, with a top-20 FIP and the 12th-best xFIP among the 162 starters with the most innings completed since that date. But even more impressively, he has a 75/71/68 line when you filter out his first three starts, where he was clearly learning on the job and honing his evolving pitching approach. From The As of today, he is 11th in pitching fWAR, 10th in FIP and fifth in xFIP.

Part of that success has been his dominance over the Phillies. On July 6, he stunned them with a 7/1 K/BB ratio in six frames, scoring a single run in an easy 5-1 victory. Two weeks ago, he outdid himself with a 9/1 K/BB ratio in 6 2/3, helping the Braves to a 3-2 victory over their division rivals.

The Phillies, meanwhile, must confront the Braves with the final piece of their fearsome quartet: Aaron Nola. The 31-year-old right-hander is honestly having a rather lame season by his standards, but the good news for the Phillies is that his standards are so high that a lame season is still well above average for him in general. Nola enters the game with a 79/94/89 record. Both his FIP and xFIP are the worst he’s had since his partial rookie season in 2015, but they’re still better than average. Nola has also struggled a bit for a while — since the All-Star break, his record is 74/104/106, largely due to a dwindling strikeout rate. In his last start against the Astros, he recorded six strikeouts for the first time in games.

Nola has beaten the Braves three times this season. They crushed him in the second game of the season with two home runs (and counting), but were dominated by him despite two home runs (an 8/0 K/BB ratio does that) on July 5 (that was the game in which Max Fried allowed Trea Turner home runs, including 4TTO). A few weeks ago, Nola was the starter in the Phillies’ only series win against the Braves, another 3-2 affair in which he allowed a home run to Orlando Arcia and posted a 5/2 K/BB ratio in 5 ¹⁄₃ Frame.

Game info

Date/time of the game: Sunday, September 1, 7:10 p.m. EDT

Location: Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, PA

TV: ESPN

Radio: 680 AM / 93,7 FM The Fan

XM Radio: Chapter 89 / Chapter 175