An Absolute Nightmare: Phillies Go From Home Run Derby to No-Hit in One Night

What just happened?

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!

The Phillies entered Game 4 of the World Series up 2 games to 1, coming off a home run party the night before and still riding the wave of the extraordinary comeback win in Game 1.

All the momentum was on the Phillies side, and all the pressure was on Houston. Three and a half hours later and the momentum shifted towards the Astros side and the Phillies became a joke again.

The Phillies, who up until this point were invincible at Citizens Bank Park, got No-Hit in their first playoff loss at home in the season. The game itself seemed over after the godawful 5th inning where Houston scored all 5 of their runs, but the fact that the Phils still couldn’t muster a single hit after that is additionally embarrassing.

While it was a combined No-Hitter, it was still a breakout performance for Cristian Javier. How Javier wasn’t the Game 1 starter I have no idea, but he just gave one of the great performances in modern World Series history.

It’s just the 3rd No-Hitter in Playoff history, and the 2nd in World Series history. Two of the three Postseason No-Hitters occurred at Citizens Bank Park which is insane to think about. One was the ultimate dream, and the other was the ultimate nightmare. We also got this all-time great tweet:

But perhaps the most heartbreaking thing to see in this game was Aaron Nola having problems in the 5th inning again. He gutted out 4 scoreless innings in what looked like an intense pitching duel. But three straight singles in the 5th ended his night, and Jose Alvarado’s first pitch hitting Yordan Alvarez in the back was a bad omen that started a 5-run 5th inning for Houston.

After that total disaster of an inning the rest of the Phillies bullpen did good. And having more faith in the bullpen instead of their two aces in the World Series truly have us living in bizzaro world.

Here’s the one good thing about being No-Hit: It’s still one loss. The series is tied 2-2. Yes, it is devastating to lose home-field advantage and the fact that if they win the series it won’t be at home, but it’s still not over.

Is it difficult to recover fast after being No-Hit? Yes. But all they have to do is rebound in Game 5, a must win game, and plenty of their swagger and good vibes will return. And the Phils winning this series despite being No-Hit would be the most 2022 Phils thing ever, but man it’s really hard to do.

So yeah, this totally sucks and was the complete opposite of what we were hoping for. All we can do is put on the powder blue jerseys and focus on tomorrow, lets rock Verlander again tomorrow and let the bullpen do their thing.

 

 

By Mike McCarrick | November 3, 2022