This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

PHILADELPHIA -- The Phillies partied on Monday night, but everybody showed up on time to work on Tuesday.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson reminded everybody that they have more to accomplish before Sunday’s regular-season finale. They want to clinch one of the top two seeds in the National League, which would give them a first-round bye. The Phillies entered Tuesday night’s game against the Cubs needing a combination of two wins and/or two Brewers losses to ensure they will not play in the NL Wild Card Series.

A look at the week ahead:

Rest
Bryce Harper has been playing with a sore right elbow and a sore wrist for weeks. Some of his teammates are banged up, too.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to rest a few days, even before the first-round bye. Expect it.

“I mean, everybody goes through bumps and bruises throughout the season,” Harper said on Monday night. “I feel like it’s getting better. I feel like my swings are OK. But obviously, these next couple days, going into Sunday, we’ll see what the lineups look like. Obviously, you want to get the best record in baseball, so we do have the bye. But we'll see what happens.

“I think the bye is going to help a lot of our team. I mean, I think a lot of guys are kind of grinding through a lot of stuff, so kind of getting that reset and kind of hitting the pause for a minute. Obviously, we’ve still got to stay in shape and do the things we can do. Kind of take a page out of Houston’s book. They've done it the last couple years, so they've been able to do it. So, we’ll see what happens different.”

Rotation
Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola are scheduled to pitch Saturday and Sunday, respectively. They will start, otherwise they will go more than a week before they pitch in the NL Division Series, which begins on Oct. 5.

“It’s just a matter of how long they go,” Thomson said.

Don’t expect them to be pushing into the seventh or eighth inning this weekend in D.C.

Hays
The Phillies optioned outfielder Cal Stevenson on Tuesday to make room for Austin Hays, who was reinstated from the IL following a kidney infection.

Hays started in left field on Tuesday. The Phillies hope to play him as much as possible in the season’s final five games, but without pushing him too much following the layoff. Hays will make the NLDS roster, which is likely to carry 14 position players and 12 pitchers.

Right now, that five-man bench would include Kody Clemens and Weston Wilson, although Stevenson remains in play for the NLDS, especially if they face a team without many left-handed pitchers.