PHILADELPHIA – The last time the Arizona Diamondbacks won a game in the NLCS, Randy Johnson took the win and Erubiel Durazo hit the game-winning home run off Tom Glavine. It’s been a minute.

When Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen took the mound in Philadelphia, he was hoping to make a dent in that history; the Phillies have been red hot all October, but so has Arizona, and Gallen’s arm is one of the best weapons the D-backs have. But Kyle Schwarber hit the first pitch Gallen threw off the video board on the facing of the second deck at Citizens Bank Park. A minute? The Phillies took the lead in seconds. Two batters later, Bryce Harper crushed another fastball out to right center. It wasn’t quite over before it began, but the Phillies took the lead on the first pitch they saw and never gave it up.

“The reality is we were probably going to lose a game at some point,” Evan Longoria offered after the game, attempting to put the defeat in perspective. But the Phillies roughed Gallen up early and held off a series of late rallies to win 5-3. Surely it was not the manner of defeat anyone from the Diamondbacks had in mind. Read the rest of this entry »

If you need a reminder that anything can happen in a short postseason series, this is it, because the Phillies and Diamondbacks just pulled off two of the biggest upsets in postseason history as defined by regular season winning percentage differentials. The Phillies (90-72, .556) upended the Braves (104-58, .642) in a four-game thriller that left presumptive NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. speechless while the Diamondbacks (84-78, .519) swept the Dodgers (100-62, .617) into oblivion, holding MVP candidate Mookie Betts hitless and knocking Clayton Kershaw out in the first inning.

Perhaps the results shouldn’t have been quite as shocking as they were, given that we’ve all seen our share of October upsets. The Phillies should remind us of that, as a cast very similar to this year’s knocked off a powerhouse Braves team on the way to their first pennant in 13 years just last season. It’s worth remembering as we evaluate any postseason team that they’ve all undergone substantial changes — some for the better, some for the worse — on their way through the 162-game season and the first two rounds of the postseason.

By the regular season numbers, this would appear to be a mismatch, with the Phillies having an edge in every category except strikeout and walk rates, stolen bases, and baserunning. Thus far in the postseason, however, the two teams have been very similar, each thumping 13 homers and producing similar slash lines. The Phillies have hit .274/.354/.538 (137 wRC+), scoring 52% of their runs via homers, and stealing nine bases, while the Diamondbacks have hit .262/.347/.530 (133 wRC+), scoring 47% of their runs via homers, and stealing seven bases. That said, it’s a stretch to suggest the two lineups are of equal strength, particularly given that Arizona doesn’t have a left-handed option to start, though some of Philadelphia’s righties are vulnerable to same-side pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — You know what they say about first impressions, right? Well forget it. It’s nonsense.

The Phillies have run back last season’s NLDS result: a 3-1 victory over the rival Atlanta Braves, the no. 1 seed in the National League bracket. This time out was a little more acrimonious than the last, at times a little more touch-and-go, as a cavalcade of pitchers only barely kept the cap on the violently fizzing soda bottle that is Atlanta’s offense.

But with Braves ace Spencer Strider standing between the Phillies and a return to the NLCS, two players who were on the verge of being run out of town in the past 12 months — Nick Castellanos and Trea Turner — put the team on their backs. Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — When Bryce Harper sees a breaking ball middle-middle or middle-in, the most common outcome is not what you might think: He fouls it off. Over the course of the regular season, he saw 61 such pitches and hit 25 of them foul. Six others he took for strikes, nine more he swung at and missed, 11 others were hit in play for outs. Only two of those 61 balls went into the seats.

That still makes him one of baseball’s most dangerous hitters on such pitches. On breaking balls middle-middle and middle-in, he slugged an even 1.000 with an ISO of .524. This season, 161 hitters saw 750 or more pitches from the left side; Harper was 12th in wOBA, fifth in xwOBA, 16th in ISO, and tied for 11th in slugging percentage.

You don’t want to pitch him there. Because what if he doesn’t foul it off?

In the Phillies’ 10–2 win over the Braves in Game 3 of the NLDS, Harper saw 19 total pitches, 16 breaking balls. Three floated into the middle-middle or middle-in region. Sure enough, Harper fouled one of them off. The other two decided the game. Read the rest of this entry »

Amidst all the headlines last fall about the Phillies’ postseason run, perhaps the repetition of the phrase had a subconscious influence on the team. Phillies? Postseason? Run! That might explain why they’ve been taking those words so literally this October.

In four postseason games, the Phillies have stolen nine bases on ten attempts. They’ve advanced on five wild pitches, one failed pickoff, and a lofty throw that wound up in center field. Bryce Harper legged out an infield single; Nick Castellanos stretched a bloop hit into a double. Trea Turner hasn’t stopped moving in over a week. Most recently and most dramatically, Harper ran his way into a game-ending fly-out/throw-out double play at first base, in an aggressive bit of baserunning that wasn’t nearly as foolish as the Gameday description would have you believe. Read the rest of this entry »

It won’t be remembered this way, but last night’s Braves/Phillies Game 2 clash provides an interesting bookend to the interminable Blake Snell discussion we’ve been having every October since the moment it happened in 2020. Let’s set the scene: Zack Wheeler looked absolutely dominant to start the night, bowling the Braves over to the tune of five no-hit innings, with an error the only blemish on his pitching line. He started to wobble in the sixth, with a walk and a single leading to an unearned run. The Phillies led 4-1, and Rob Thomson had the bullpen working overtime, but Wheeler struck out Austin Riley to end the threat and keep the bullpen at bay.

Clearly, the Phillies were considering going to a reliever, and you can understand why. They showed a ton of trust in their bullpen in the first game against Atlanta, and the ‘pen delivered: 5.1 scoreless innings fueled a 3-0 victory. After an off day, the gang was rested, and today is another off day, which meant there would be more time to recover, particularly considering there were only three innings to cover. Read the rest of this entry »

The Braves can thank Austin Riley for pulling Monday night’s win out of a hat in the late innings. His two-run homer off Jeff Hoffman in the bottom of the eighth inning of NLDS Game 2 gave the Braves their fifth unanswered run and a 5–4 lead. His heads-up throw to first base to double up Bryce Harper at the tail end of a wild, spectacular play secured the game’s final out, helping the Braves escape Truist Field with a split after spending most of the night looking like they would be heading to Philadelphia on the brink of elimination.

That game-ending double play occurred with Nick Castellanos at the plate and Harper, representing the tying run after drawing a leadoff walk against A.J. Minter (who was then replaced by closer Raisel Iglesias), on first. Castellanos swatted a towering 101-mph drive an estimated 392 feet to deep center field. Center fielder Michael Harris II got on his horse to run down the ball, making a leaping catch at the wall to take away a sure extra-base hit that could have tied the game. Harper, who had been running on contact, had to turn back after passing second base, and though Harris’ relay throw bounced past cutoff man Ozzie Albies, Riley alertly backed up the play, backhanding the ball and side-arming a peg to first baseman Matt Olson in time to nab Harper for one of the craziest endings to a postseason game in recent memory. Read the rest of this entry »

The rematch of last year’s NLDS between Philadelphia and Atlanta started off the same way it did last October: with a surprising win by the underdog Phillies. They eked out three runs and held the Braves scoreless at home for the first time this year and the first time since August 28, 2021. It was also the Phillies’ seventh consecutive win in the opening game of a postseason series, putting them in the driver’s seat in the five-game series — again.

The biggest weakness of the Philadelphia roster that reached the World Series last year was their bullpen. But the Phillies quietly led all of baseball in pitching WAR this season thanks to a fantastic rotation and a much improved relief corps, with their ‘pen improving its adjusted ERA from 105 to 81. With Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola spent during the Wild Card round, the Phillies turned to Ranger Suárez to make the start in Game 1; he turned in a solid effort, lasting 3.2 innings and allowing just three baserunners while striking out four. When he ran into some trouble in the fourth inning, manager Rob Thomson used a quick hook on his starter and handed the game over to his bullpen. Six relievers went on to combine for 5.1 scoreless innings in an impressive display from the team’s most improved unit:

Instead of a dominating performance marked by tons of strikeouts, the Phillies were perfectly satisfied to allow Atlanta to aggressively put the ball in play. No team fared better than the Braves when making contact this year — they led baseball in both wOBA and expected wOBA on contact — but thanks to some phenomenal defense and a healthy dose of contact management, they were frustrated all night long. Read the rest of this entry »

The Phillies summarily dispatched the Marlins in two games this week in the wild card round, setting up a rematch with the Braves in the NLDS. On paper, Atlanta is the superior team, one that topped the majors with 104 wins this season and won the NL East by 14 games over Philadelphia. But playoff series aren’t won on paper, and baseball is the coin-tossiest of the major sports; its playoffs aren’t about crowning the best team, but the winning team — two correlated yet different things. The Braves had a 14-win advantage over the Phillies last year, too, and that didn’t keep Philadelphia from sending Atlanta back home on a midnight plane to Georgia in four games. The Phillies could easily do it again.

The Phillies didn’t come away with a championship in 2022, but anyone claiming that they had an unsuccessful season should have their pants checked for fire-related damage. Knocking out the Braves ought to have given them significant satifaction last year, given how Atlanta had come out on top in recent seasons. Both teams spent much of the mid-to-late 2010s in rebuilding processes, but the Braves had considerably more success; their 2022 playoff appearance was their fifth in as many seasons. Philadelphia, on the other hand, had trouble developing impact players at the rate Atlanta did; 2022’s postseason run was the franchise’s first in 11 years. Read the rest of this entry »

I guess we statistically inclined writers aren’t technically supposed to believe in momentum. At least, we’re not supposed to believe it’s measurable or predictive. In baseball as in physics, the trajectory of events can be altered in the blink of an eye. Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the moment momentum changes. Not so here.

On Wednesday night, Aaron Nola followed up Zack Wheeler’s Game 1 masterpiece with seven scoreless innings of his own. The Phillies got to Braxton Garrett early and broke the game open with a late Bryson Stott grand slam. Final score: 7-1. Time to crank the Tiësto remix of Calum Scott’s cover of “Dancing On My Own,” play the video of Harry Kalas singing “High Hopes,” and hop on a plane to Atlanta for the NLDS.

It looked very, very easy, even by the standards of a two-game sweep, but it was not preordained. Needing one win to clinch the series, the Phillies were presented with two obvious chances to seize control of the game. They grabbed both without hesitation. Read the rest of this entry »