San Diego Padres’ Manny Machado watches his home run during the seventh inning in Game 2 of the NL Championship Series against the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday in San Diego. The Padres won 8-5 to tie the series at 1-1. (AP photo)

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball views expanded playoffs as the more the merrier. Not for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals.

The National League’s four winningest teams failed to reach the League Championship Series, six months of accomplishment undone in just a few days.

Philadelphia is vying to become the first third-place team to reach the World Series after clinching the 12th and final playoff spot on Oct. 3, three weeks after the Dodgers locked up the first.

Years of expansion have turned the Fall Classic into a month-plus tournament and the 162-game season into a postseason prologue.

“The hot team is really difficult to beat in general,” Houston pitcher Justin Verlander said. “And then so you take the best teams in the regular season, have them take off five days, which we’re not used to, and then have the hot team keep playing … I think you can see how easily you can lose that series.”

Philadelphia, with the National League’s sixth-best record, opened the NLCS with a win at San Diego, which was No. 5, but dropped its second game Wednesday.

Houston, the American League’s winningest team, opened the ALCS on Wednesday night with a win over the New York Yankees, who had the No. 2 record.

All remaining teams are among the top nine payrolls: the Yankees third ($254 million), Phillies fourth ($237 million), Padres fifth ($221 million) and Astros ninth ($186 million).

From 1903-68, the teams with the top record in each league advanced directly to the World Series.

Then playoffs were added and only 15 teams with their league’s top record won the World Series from 1969-93, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. After a second round of playoffs was introduced, just six clubs with their league’s top mark took the title from 1995-2011 and five have won it all since wild-card games started in 2012.

And this year included an entire wild-card round that led to byes for the four top teams — along with five off days.

“Just adding more teams to the mix makes it more difficult of a road,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Especially in baseball probably a little bit more so than other sports, kind of any team can win on a given day.”

Four of the six winningest regular-season teams failed to reach this year’s LCS. The Dodgers (111) and Braves (101) lost in the best-of-five Division Series. The Mets (101) and Cardinals (93) were knocked out in the best-of-three wild-card round.

Only two teams with winning records failed to make the playoffs, Milwaukee and Baltimore — and they would have if the players’ association had agreed to Commissioner Rob Manfred’s 14-team plan.

Among the players’ proposals was expanding the Division Series to best-of-seven with reseeding after each round. They also said they would consider MLB’s proposal for a 14-team postseason if it included giving the higher seed a “ghost win” — starting with a 1-0 series lead.

PADRES 8,

PHILLIES 5

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Brandon Drury hit a go-ahead, two-run single during a five-run rally in the fifth inning and San Diego stunned Aaron Nola and Philadelphia to tie their all-wild card NL Championship Series at one game apiece.

The outburst started with Padres catcher Austin Nola hitting an RBI single off his younger brother that brought the sellout, towel-twirling crowd of 44,607 at Petco Park to life. Three innings earlier, the Phillies took a 4-0 lead with a rally that included bloop hits, a sun-aided double on a gorgeous, 92-degree afternoon and some shoddy Padres defense.

ASTROS 4,

YANKEES 2

HOUSTON (AP) — Justin Verlander struck out 11 in six strong innings and Yuli Gurriel, Chas McCormick and Jeremy Peña all homered to power Houston over New York in their AL Championship Series opener.

The game was tied 1-all in the sixth when Gurriel connected off reliever Clarke Schmidt for a solo shot that put Houston on top. Two batters later, McCormick sent a sinker from Schmidt into right field to make it 3-1.