The Phillies couldn’t afford to lose Zack Wheeler’s best career postseason start. But they did anyway.
Everything lined up perfectly. They secured the division title with five games to go in the regular season, earned a bye to the Division Series two days later and entered the postseason with just about every player on the roster healthy.
Ace Zack Wheeler, lined up to pitch Games 1 and 5 in the series, was everything the Phillies could have hoped for. He allowed only one hit through seven innings. He recorded 26 swing-and-misses, a career high. The late afternoon shadows helped, but Wheeler was on.
The rest was cruel. The Phillies’ three best relievers, Jeff Hoffman, Matt Strahm and Orion Kerkering, allowed five runs in the eighth and the Phillies bats managed only one hit, a bloop single lost in the sun, through innings two through eight.
It was the kind of game the Phillies went months without losing. Philadelphia carried a 34-game winning streak when the starting pitcher threw at least seven innings. They have now lost three straight when the starter goes seven, including a 2-1 loss to the Mets at Citi Field with Wheeler on the mound. They scored two runs or fewer in all three of those games.
The Phillies’ first run of the game, a leadoff second-deck home run from Kyle Schwarber, ignited the raucous October crowd at Citizens Bank Park. The second run, driven in by Kody Clemens with two outs in the ninth, came with many already in the parking lot.
Before Bryce Harper doubled with two outs in the eighth inning, the Phillies were hitless in their last 19 at-bats.
“We’ve got to understand what they’re going to try to do to us and flip the switch as an offense immediately,” Harper said. “I just think obviously, they’re going to bury stuff and try to get us to chase as much as possible. Obviously, they got really good pitching, but we’ve got really good hitters in here. We just got to bear down and understand that we can do it.”
It’s not an excuse, but Nick Castellanos, who went 1-for-4 with a single in his last at-bat, had an explanation.
“I feel like from the first inning to the seventh inning, it was really hard to see the baseball,” Castellanos said. “I think on both sides. What did we have? Three hits in the first seven innings? I think both teams, after the sun was behind the stadium, put together better at-bats.”
Trea Turner gave a nearly identical quote.
“I think there was three hits through the first seven innings,” Turner said. “As soon as the sun went away, the bats got a lot better on both sides.”
The conditions for tomorrow’s game are expected to be the same. How do they adjust?
“It’s going to be a grind,” Castellanos said. “It’s going to be the same for us as it is for them. We’re going to have to find a way to deal with it and put together good at-bats and score more runs than them.”
Judging by the box score, there is truth to the sun being a factor in the Phillies’ offensive struggles. But that’s not the narrative those in New York are leaning on. The Mets lineup, who struggled just as bad with the sun in the way, thrived when in an 0-2 hole against the Phillies bullpen in the top of the eighth.
“When you’re only down one run, you’re able to think small and try to push that one run across, and then just keep doing it,” Brandon Nimmo said. “I thought what we did, you could put on a highlight reel, this is just good baseball without hitting a home run. Very, very proud of the guys for that.”
Five straight batters starting with Francisco Lindor fell behind 0-2. After a Lindor foul ball, Hoffman threw the Mets shortstop four pitches way out of the zone for a walk. With two strikes, the next batter Mark Vientos lined a slider into left field to tie the game.
“I obviously would have liked to put them away,” Hoffman said. “Get ahead and stay ahead. It happens. Come out and do better tomorrow.”
The next reliever in Matt Strahm missed his spot on a fastball and Nimmo was able to hit the ball the other way to drive in two, with two strikes of course. An Alonso sacrifice fly on a fastball in the zone with two strikes made it 3-1. Then Jose Iglesias worked a 10-pitch at-bat for a single and J.D. Martinez and Starling Marte drove in two more against Kerkering to put the game out of reach.
Did the Phillies relievers throw too many pitches in the zone? Should an adjustment have been made?
“I’ve said it my entire career,” Strahm said. “I throw strikes. I attack. With that, you’re going to give up 0-2 hits. I’m also going to get a lot of outs really quick and be available often.”
Strahm’s way has worked really well. He finished the year with a 1.87 ERA. Same for Hoffman, who will get paid this offseason regardless of his postseason failures, but the cruel part about the playoffs is that none of that success earned over six months matters.
“We don’t think we need much,” Strahm said, referring to both himself and Hoffman. “That’s a scrappy ball team over there. They smelled blood in the water and they got us.”
Turner, who went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, entered the clubhouse still in full uniform approximately a half hour after the game ended with a bat still in hand.
For him, the biggest missed opportunity was the fifth inning, when No. 9 hitter Johan Rojas worked out a walk and the top of the order stranded him in scoring position on a Schwarber ground out, Turner pop up and Harper strike out.
“You saw last year with Arizona. We had games where we’d score, but then we had games where we pitched really good and those are going to happen,” Turner said. “It’s, can you control the game like [Thomson] is saying? Can you bunt, move a guy over, have a productive at-bat when they’re going well. I think that’s kind of the difference in those innings. I feel like I could have had a better at-bat with Rojas on second. If I find a hole or anything happens, that’s a 2-0 lead and maybe we keep going.”
Whether it’s the shadows, too many strikes, not laying off pitches out of the zone or a lack of execution on the mound and at the plate, the Phillies will have to dig deep to find a way out of the early hole they have dug themselves. Otherwise, they’ll go to New York on Sunday night facing elimination.
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