ATLANTA — Prior to Game 2 of the National League Division Series, Phillies manager Rob Thomson was asked if this whole thing feels like deja vu.
Many of the prominent Phillies storylines are back again for another year. The Phillies are facing the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS — and the bullpen is looking dangerous. The 1-2 punch of Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola carried them through a Wild Card series beatdown and Bryce Harper is hitting home runs again in the biggest spots.
Thomson made an interesting comment.
“The whole year. April, May and June. The whole year.”
He didn’t enunciate his response to the question with Jason Kelce-like gravitas from the Eagles Super Bowl Parade in 2018, but it carried similar weight.
Like last year, the Phillies have a chance to head back to Philadelphia with a 2-0 lead. Before we look ahead to Game 2, here’s a look back on some of the best sequences from the Phillies’ all-time pitching performance in Game 1 of the National League Division Series.
Bottom of the 1st, one out, nobody on: Ranger Suárez vs. Austin Riley
- 93 mph four-seam fastball on the outside for a called strike.
- 82 mph changeup below the zone fouled off.
- 94 mph fastball inside for a ball.
- 78.2 mph curveball in the dirt for a ball.
- 93 mph four-seam fastball outside the zone fouled off.
- 93 mph sinker inside for a called strike three.
Here’s a great quote from J.T. Realmuto on his approach to calling the game in the first inning.
“We used Ranger like a closer in the first inning,” Realmuto said. “We weren’t necessarily trying to save his best pitches or set guys up for a second or third at-bat. We just attacked them how we would if the game was on the line.”
Suárez’s first pitch of the game was an inside cutter that Ronald Acuña Jr. grounded to second for a quick first out of the game. He took advantage of Acuña’s aggressiveness and executed a perfect pitch on the inside to jam him.
In a surprising move, Braves manager Brian Snitker dramatically altered the lineup prior to Game 1. One of those moves was shifting Austin Riley from No. 3 to 2. The idea was to set up better late-game matchups against the Phillies’ lefty relievers for hitters further down in the order.
We’ll get more into that later, but this ended up being the Braves’ longest at-bat of the night against Suárez. Through two batters, Suárez showed the Braves hitters four different pitches.
He got ahead 0-2, came inside on a tight fastball and showed him a curveball that Realmuto had to block in the dirt. Riley was hunting the fastball — he slugged .536 against heaters during the regular season, but he also had to be on alert for an offspeed pitch.
Suárez and Realmuto weren’t playing around. Suárez threw his most aesthetically pleasing pitch, a perfectly executed inside sinker that backs the hitter off the plate — for a called third strike.
Bottom of the 4th, bases loaded, two outs: Jeff Hoffman vs. Michael Harris II
- 90 mph splitter down in the zone for a ball.
- 87 mph slider inside fouled off.
- 97 mph fastball that runs off the plate for a ball.
- 89 mph splitter on the outside corner for a swinging strike.
- 89 mph splitter inside and low for a strike three swinging.
Jeff Hoffman was always the choice to follow Suárez, regardless of the matchup. What makes this at-bat more impressive was that Hoffman was squeezed on a terrible 2-1 pitch that should have easily been a strike. It was a well-placed slider at the top of the zone that would have made the count 2-2 against Marcell Ozuna.
The call could have changed the complexion of the game, but Hoffman did not allow that to happen.
He attacked the left-handed hitting Michael Harris II with three splitters, one to begin the at-bat and two to end it.
The splitter, according to Hoffman, was a pitch he began throwing earlier in his career as a member of the Colorado Rockies. He started throwing it because he had an ineffective changeup that was more like a “batting practice fastball.”
“So we needed to find something that we could kill spin with, and that ended up being splitting the grip that I had in my hand,” Hoffman said. “And then we started seeing a little bit more movement, a little bit more soft contact, like soft contact rates started going up. And through the years, that was probably 2019 when I started throwing it. Cincinnati ticked up a little bit more. And then once we realized how well it was going to play with the added velocity on my slider, that’s when it really kind of took off.
“And now the slider and the splitter are kind of same velocity, and basically the hitter just has to decide which one it is, and one’s going to turn left and one’s going to turn right.”
Bottom of the 5th, runners on the corners with one out: Seranthony Dominguez vs. Ronald Acuña Jr.
- 99 mph sinker inside fouled off.
- 98 mph sinker low and outside that just missed for a ball.
- 99 mph sinker low and inside fouled off.
- 98 mph four-seam fastball on the inside corner for a called third stike.
Seranthony Domínguez committed a cardinal sin in his last at-bat: throwing the free-swinging Eddie Rosario a two-strike fastball in the strike zone.
The base hit set up runners on first and third with one out for the dangerous Acuña. Domínguez did not have a feel for his slider, so if he was going to keep the Braves off the board, he was going to have to do it with his fastball.
His command of the pitch against Acuña and the next batter Riley was superb. Again, Acuña’s at-bat began with a swing on a fastball inside. Domínguez just missed on a pitch low and outside. Then he perfectly located a sinker low and inside and came back inside on a fastball for a called strike three.
“It was some high velocity and there was some movement to it,” Thomson said on Monday about Domínguez’s fastball. “Maybe he gets up for these type of moments.”
Bottom of the 8th, runners on first and second, nobody out: Matt Strahm vs. Matt Olson
- 82 mph slider high and inside for a called strike.
- 92 mph sinker down in the zone fouled off.
- 94 mph four-seam fastball above the zone for a ball.
- 82 mph slider way inside for a ball.
- 93 mph four-seam fastball outside for a ball.
- 92.6 mph sinker middle-in for a fly out to center.
The downside of Thomson’s aggressive deployment of his bullpen is that he began to run out of options near the end of the game.
Many were nervous to see Matt Strahm come out of the bullpen with Acuña on base and Riley, Matt Olson and Albies due up in the bottom of the eighth. Really, Strahm deserves a lot of credit for what he has accomplished in his first season as a Phillie. He put his health on the line and pitched out of the rotation when the Phillies were short on viable starters and did an incredible job. He threw multiple innings of the bullpen and was mostly effective. He finished the regular season with a 3.29 ERA, his lowest in a full season since 2018.
The Phillies will ask less of Strahm this postseason and it wouldn’t be surprising if we see an even better version of him moving forward.
The Strahm vs. Olson at-bat was massive. Olson is the Braves’ biggest power threat. Olson slugged .491 with a .799 OPS against lefties compared to a .645 slug with a 1.061 OPS against righties in the regular season. Strahm had to get Olson out because the Phillies could not afford to give the lefty-crushing, switch-hitter Albies a chance to hit as the go-ahead run.
Strahm threw a slider with wicked movement up in the zone for strike one and got Olson to foul off a fastball down. After nearly hitting Olson with a slider inside, Strahm missed outside to bring the count to 3-2.
This was the game. Strahm came back inside and got Olson to swing at ball four on a sinker he fouled off. The next pitch was a sinker inside that just missed the barrel. Braves fans erupted. The ball hit the warning track, but the center fielder Johan Rojas camped underneath of it for a huge first out of the inning.
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