These Playoff Phillies Are Just DIFFERENT
Think about how low we felt after the Phillies most recent series at Wrigley Field. The bats were ice cold and the pitching wasn’t dominant enough against one of the worst teams in baseball. Being down one run felt like being down 5 runs. It felt like the Phils were going to have a 5th consecutive September collapse and allow the Brewers to take the final National League Wild Card spot. The playoff drought would expand to 12 years and with the Seattle Mariners making it, the Phillies would own the longest postseason drought in Major League Baseball and the fans would have to wait for another agonizing year without October Baseball.
Fast forward to now and it feels like that Cubs series never happened. It was the Brewers who collapsed at home against the Marlins while the Phillies took 3 out of 4 from the Nationals. Then it was all sealed in the first game against the Houston Astros when Aaron Nola took a perfect game into the 7th inning. Despite the Brewers coming from behind to win the Phillies took care their game to seal the 3rd Wild Card spot and end the drought.
Finally getting over the hump and being in the playoffs at all would have been enough for a successful season. The celebration for making it before falling short in the Wild Card round would have been a great way to end the team video year book. In actuality, the Phils were not done.
11 years to the day of their infamous last playoff game, they took on the same team from 2011 with 3 members of that team remaining and all on their farewell tour. The Phillies first playoff game in over a decade made us remember exactly what October baseball was like. Sitting with bated breath for every single pitch thrown. What’s usually boring and slow in the middle of June is intense and stressful in October. Game 1 was a 0-0 slow burn for 6 and a half innings, as Zach Wheeler shut down the Cards manager Rob Thompson called up the usually reliable Jose Alvarado to finish off the 7th inning. What followed was a tense 2 out walk and then pinch hitter Juan Yepez jacked a homer on the first pitch to give St. Louis a 2-0 lead.
It felt like it was over. Like in the Cubs series, being down 1 run felt like being down 5 runs. They were going to waste Wheeler’s great performance and have to rely on Aaron Nola the next day to save us. They were down to their last 2 outs and it seemed like business as usual for the typically lucky Cardinals.
And then insanity happened…take it away Jomboy:
A base hit by JT, a walk for Bryce, a walk for Nick Castellanos, and then a Hit by Pitch for Alex Bohm. It was clear that something was wrong for relief pitcher Ryan Helsley as he wasn’t able to throw strikes effectively. A run scores and St. Louis brought in Andre Pallante to protect the lead. Jean Segura, who played 1,328 games without ever playing in a playoff game, makes the hit he’s waited ten years for as it went by the 2nd basemen glove. Two runs score and suddenly the Phillies take the lead. Three runs followed thanks to some shockingly bad fielding by the always reliable Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado.
After not scoring a run for a combined 17 innings in their last two playoff games counting the disaster that was Game 5 in 2011, the 2022 Phils more than made up for it with one of, if not the most insane innings in Phillies playoff history.
While it felt like the end of the series, the Phillies still had to win one more game in this best of three to move on to the next round. And in Game 2 Playoff Nola was finally born as he had just as good a game as Zach Wheeler did the day before. Bryce Harper also finally had his first great playoff moment as a Phillie with a solo home run.
It didn’t seem real, but it was the Phillies who shut down the Cardinals in their home stadium. It was the best fans in baseball in Baseball Heaven who left early before the final out was recorded, the one consolation being that franchise icons Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina each got a hit in their final at-bat and got to say goodbye one last time.
Being shut out at home in the first round and expecting to go further in the playoffs, the same way the Phillies went out in 2011 that took exactly 11 years to recover from. Now y’all know what it feels like.
The old Phillies that we’ve known for a decade never wins these games. But this Phillies team right now is just DIFFERENT. They make the big pitch, get the big hit and make the big play on defense. Who would have thought that Alex Bohm was a better fielding 3rd basemen than Nolan Arenado of all people? This playoff run has already gone beyond our wildest imagination, and the best part is that it’s still going.
Hopefully this series win is a sign of what’s to come not only for these playoffs, but for several playoff runs over the next few years.
While the defending champion Braves will be a difficult opponent to face, the fact we’re playing them in the NLDS and will have at least one game at Citizens Bank Park is incredibly exciting.
Bring on the Braves and lets go Fightins!!!