Entering the middle innings on a postcard-perfect afternoon, the Mets had just grabbed an early lead over the Phillies. This did not sit well with two baseball lifers who were sitting in the back of the press box at Citizens Bank Park.
Charlie Manuel and Larry Bowa combined to manage 1,117 Phillies victories. To put that in perspective, it represents more than 10 percent of all the wins ever for a franchise that opened for business in 1883.
At that moment, the topic of conversation was the importance of having momentum going into the postseason. The Phillies appeared to be headed toward their second consecutive loss and the franchise icons were just a trifle nettled.
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“You can’t flip the switch,” said Bowa, repeating an admonition he’d uttered often in his managerial career. “You’ve got to be on all cylinders, man, until you clinch. You can’t be BSing.”
Maybe the Phillies didn’t flip a switch Saturday. But they did come back to win, 6-4, on the strength of Bryce Harper’s first two homers in a month and yet another huge off-the-bench contribution. This time the Hero for a Day was outfielder Cal Stevenson, who doubled in the tying and winning runs with two outs in the bottom of the seventh and also made two highlights reel worthy defensive plays on the warning track, the second of which robbed Mets designated hitter J.D. Martinez of a homer to dead center in the top of the eighth.
Still, the issue of finishing strong is one the Phillies will grapple with in the final two weeks of the regular season.
Manuel well remembers 2011. The Phils won 102 games, still a franchise record. They also lost their eighth straight in the first game of a doubleheader against the Mets on September 24 with just four games left before the playoffs started.
Philadelphia Phillies
Not wanting to go into the postseason on a downward trend, Manuel pushed to get his team back on track. Sure enough, they finished with four straight wins, including outlasting the Braves in 13 innings on the last day of the regular season ... but were eliminated by the Cardinals in the first round.
“I was concerned with how we were playing at the time,” he said Saturday. “You can definitely start resting your players too early. Right now, if I was in the position the Phillies are in, I would definitely want to get the bye in the first round.”
That, of course, is the difference. When Bowa and Manuel were managing, having the two best records among the three division winners didn’t result in a bye in the wild card round. That only strengthened their conviction that pedal-to-the-medal is the way to go under the current playoff structure.
“Right now, I’d definitely be playing for the home field,” Manuel said. “And the bye. That first round is where you can get ambushed.”
Bowa amplified the thought. “I never thought, in baseball, there was a homefield advantage. But in this park? I think there is a homefield advantage, I really do. I don’t think there’s one anywhere else,” he said.
“There’s another thing when you’ve got a lead like this. Mentally, you’re saying, ‘We’re good.’ Which we are. Something really bad’s got to happen (not to win the division). But the last week, I’m letting all those guys play. Turn it back on. I’m not sitting them down. Because they can rest during the bye.”
In 2022, the Phillies secured the final wild card spot by just a game over the Brewers and then went all the way to the World Series. “Every game was like a playoff game the last three weeks. The Mets have been playing every game like a playoff game for the last, I don’t know, month? There’s something to that,” he said.
“If they go in, ‘Ah, well, we’re 4-10 the last 14 games?’ And now you’ve got a week off? I’d be concerned. I would definitely be concerned. You want to be playing good going into that. You don’t want to be scuffling.”
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