With one out in the bottom of the ninth, J.T. Realmuto swung at a hanging slider from Ryan Pressly. The Phillies have come up with miracle hit after miracle hit over a month that has delivered a decade’s worth of memories. Maybe they had one left to tie it and possibly take a 3-2 series lead to Houston.
The ball wasn’t going to carry out of the yard off the bat, but it was heading for the top of the wall in right center. For Realmuto, that’s at least a double, possibly a triple and if third base coach Dusty Wathan was feeling it, maybe a game-tying home run.
Then Chas McCormick, a 27-year-old from West Chester who was drafted by the Astros five years ago in a round that no longer exists, leaped before the ball hit the fencing, made the catch and held on as his left side slammed into the wall.
He laid on his back at the warning track for a brief moment. Pressly and Realmuto were both in disbelief.
“When I hit it, I thought I got enough of it to at least be a double, but he made a pretty incredible play on it,” Realmuto said.
McCormick was 11 and obsessed with the Phillies when Aaron Rowand broke his nose to make a miracle catch in a relatively meaningless regular season game cut short by rain. On the biggest stage, McCormick put his body on the line to put his club within one win of a World Series against the team he used to love.
“I was going to run through a wall no matter what,” McCormick said.
Game 5, a Phillies scheduled bullpen game vs. a Hall of Fame ace who struggles on the biggest stage, wasn’t supposed to be a fair fight — even with home field advantage — but it was. Justin Verlander walked four batters in an outing for the first time in three years, but the Phillies stranded four runners in scoring position through the first five innings.
Things could have also been a lot different if the Phillies made a few plays on defense. Jose Altuve hit a ball in the gap for a double that turned into three bases when Brandon Marsh bobbled a ball in center field. Jeremy Pena’s RBI single may not have left the infield if the Phillies weren’t playing in to prevent the run from scoring.
With runners on the corner and no outs in the top of the eighth, David Robertson induced a ground ball to Rhys Hoskins, who came in, but took an awkward route to the ball. It’s debatable whether Hoskins had a play at the plate against the runner Altuve with a clean pick, but he’s at fault for not giving himself a chance.
“That’s the play,” Hoskins said when asked if he was looking to come home on the ground ball. “[Alvarez] got jammed a little bit with the cutter, the ball’s spinning, but it’s a ball I have to catch.”
On the other side, an excellent grab on a hard hit liner from Kyle Schwarber near the line to prevent the tying run from scoring in the eighth came from first baseman Trey Mancini, who was only in to replace the injured Yuli Gurriel.
Rob Thomson’s bullpen management throughout the series has been mostly spectacularly, but he tried to get one too many outs from both Noah Syndergaard and Seranthony Domínguez and it cost them. Syndergaard faced Pena — who was going to be his last hitter no matter what — to begin the fourth and allowed a leadoff solo home run.
After a stressful seventh inning, Domínguez returned for the eighth to face the top of the Astros order. Two batters later, David Robertson was entering the game to face Yordan Alvarez with two on and no out. Domínguez has been phenomenal, but anything more than three outs on five days rest was too much to ask of him. Another run scored that inning.
But it all came down to missed opportunities on offense. Before Jean Segura singled home a run in the bottom of the eighth, the Phillies were hitless in their last 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
“We’re striking out more than we normally would in these situations,” Realmuto said. “That’s a testament to how good their pitchers are. They’re doing a better job of putting the ball in play when runners are in scoring position and we’re just striking out a little too much. That’s something where if we’re going to be successful the next two games, we’re just going to have to be able to put the ball in play when guys are out there.”
Key bats have gone ice cold against the Astros’ outstanding pitching staff. Hoskins, Realmuto and Nick Castellanos are a combined 5-for-48 following Game 1. Bryson Stott is 0-for-13 and Segura is 3-for-18.
The Phillies season was over when they were swept by the Mets at Citi Field in May and fired their manager a few days later. It was also over when Bryce Harper was lost for two months with a broken thumb. It was finally over when they got swept by the Cubs in Chicago and looked to be on the brink of another September collapse. It was really over when Ryan Helsley entered the game for the Cardinals in the eighth inning with the Phillies down by two runs in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series.
The story of the Phillies season can be told through the lens of all the times they were nearly dead. Now with the team facing elimination for the first time this postseason, the resilient Phillies at least deserve a chance to dig themselves out of the grave one last time.
It’s a miracle that the Phillies are heading to Houston with a semblance of a chance despite so much going wrong. Zack Wheeler starts in Game 6, but it’s hard to feel great about that when his velocity and effectiveness was significantly down in Game 2. So many Phillies are going to need to find something extra just to force the first Game 7 in franchise history.
At this point, it doesn’t make any sense to force a rational perspective on how the next two games will play out. Almost nothing about this postseason run has made sense. Sure, Framber Valdez could build off of his phenomenal 6 1/3 innings of one run ball in Game 2 on his way to World Series MVP contention, but what if what “should” happen, doesn’t? Maybe Valdez’s control isn’t as sharp and the Phillies take advantage of pitches in the zone with runners on. Who really knows.
You could also argue that the Astros’ biggest strength — their bullpen — becomes less and less of an advantage as the series moves forward and the Phillies get multiple looks at their top guys. Rafael Montero, one of Dusty Baker’s top options, looked vulnerable. Six runners reached base safely against the Astros bullpen in Game 5.
And eventually, at least one of the big bats in the lineup will get going. Hoskins, Realmuto, Segura, Stott and Marsh have all come up with big hits this postseason.
Add on the fact that the Phillies’ postseason run began with a bonkers ninth inning comeback and two consecutive wins on the road and believing — even just a little bit — makes sense.
“We’re here, I think, because we trusted ourselves this far,” Hoskins said. “I don’t see why there is any reason to change that.”
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