This was not how it was supposed to end. The champagne still on ice. The plastic sheets to protect the locker room left unfurled. The players sitting around dejected, trying to piece together what had just transpired.
The Philadelphia Phillies were supposed to be the better team, and perhaps they are. But over the last five games against the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks, they got outplayed, outhustled and outshined. The Phillies had all the star power and all of the postseason experience, and yet they still got defeated. By a rookie pitcher who’d posted a 5.72 ERA in the regular season. In a Game 7. At home.
In the days and weeks to come, there will be plenty of blame to go around and plenty of time to dissect what happened. There was Nick Castellanos, going 0 for his last 23 and striking out with runners on the corners in the deciding game. There was Trea Turner, swinging at pitches so far out of the strike zone they might as well have been in another county. There was Johan Rojas, whose bat surprised everyone during the regular season but who, once the postseason rolled around, suddenly seemed like the overmatched rookie that he is. There was Craig Kimbrel, looking every bit as old as his driver’s license says he is. Not even Bryce Harper, the superstar who had come through time and time again with the game on the line, could do so this time.
Regardless, the Phillies find themselves left to digest another disappointing loss after a postseason run that was once filled with so much promise. After dispatching the Miami Marlins in two games and overpowering a Braves team with the best record in the National League, the Phillies must have been thrilled to be facing the Diamondbacks and not the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. When they easily took care of business in the series’ first two games and headed to Arizona with a 2-0 lead, pundits throughout the country were already putting them in the World Series.
Except, once the team left the friendly confines of Citizens Bank Park for that air conditioned stadium in the desert, the series took such a dramatic turn that the Phillies’ bus spun out of control and veered into a ditch. They had vanquished the Diamondback’s top two starters, including All-Star starter Zac Gallen, but they could not beat the rookie Brandon Pfaadt. Then they stumbled again in what was a bullpen game for the Snakes because that’s how shallow their starting rotation runs. When they beat Gallen for a second time in Game 5, they returned home only needing to win one of two games in front of fans so loud that one writer called the Bank “the best home field advantage in MLB history.”
That they failed to do so will go down in franchise lore as one of the greatest collapses of all time. Not up there with the 1964 team that ceded 10 straight to fall out of the playoffs and lost their fans’ faith for decades to come, perhaps, and not as painful as Joe Carter’s home run in the 1993 World Series, but not terribly far behind either. This was certainly worse than last season, when they held a 2-1 lead in the World Series only to get no-hit in Game 4 and then roll over in Games 5 and 6. In that case, they were playing with house money and fans were just happy for the Phillies to be playing in the World Series.
This year, expectations were heightened after the team played exceptionally well in August and September and headed into the postseason not as the last team in, like last season, but with home-field advantage in the Wild Card round. By the time the Phillies beat the Braves for the second straight year, expectations were higher than Billy Penn’s hat atop the Center City skyline.
This was the most talented team the franchise had fielded in recent history/ It was certainly their most expensive team. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski had constructed the nearly perfect roster: a mix of experienced veterans and talented youngsters who were dangerous up and down the lineup; a starting rotation that featured Ace 1, Ace 2 and a third pitcher who’d only posted the lowest ERA in postseason history with a minimum of five starts; and a relief corps with enough talented arms for manager Rob Thomson to mix and match as he pleased.
Still, it wasn’t enough. All of the talent and all of the momentum in the world meant nothing to a Diamondbacks team that is perhaps too young to know that they were supposed to be buried in the desert sand. Give them credit. After getting down 0-2, they suddenly remembered what had gotten them to the postseason in the first place and started playing the same type of aggressive, fearless baseball that the Phillies had made their hallmark. They jumped out to early leads in Games 6 and 7, and when the Phillies managed to take a slim lead in the fourth inning of Game 7, the Diamondbacks limited the damage and then immediately jumped back on top in the next half inning. The Phillies would muster just one more hit the rest of the way.
Most of this team will be back to run it again next year. The roster might not include Aaron Nola or Rhys Hoskins, but the core of this year’s lineup will remain intact. If fans can take any solace, it lies in the fact that most of the players were as stunned and frustrated as the fan base.
“It’s terrible, man. It’s a terrible feeling,” Castellanos told Phillies Nation. “To just feel like you’re locked in and being in the zone like that and have it fade away at the wrong time.”
Said Turner, “I tried to do too much and put myself in bad counts,” Turner said. “It kind of came down to [them] making good pitches and me not doing my job. The chances were there.”
And Harper, who estimated he was 1/10 of a second off from squaring up a ball that would have given the Phillies a late lead but instead landed in Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s glove just shy of the left field wall: “I wish I had two pitches back. I think the opportunity in those moments … not being able to come through there … especially against Gink … got a heater and just missed it.”
Harper had just missed his big chance, and the Phillies just missed a second straight World Series appearance. When they exited the postseason last year there was the feeling that they’d be back. But this year, the predominant feeling is that they missed out on one of the better chances in franchise history, with no guarantees going forward.
This season should have ended with a parade down Broad Street, or at the very least another World Series appearance. It should have ended in triumph and glory and the players celebrating in the infield. Instead, the players — and the fans — are left wondering “What if?”
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