Phillies path to promised land now considerably trickier after falling behind in NLDS

Nothing to worry about, the Phillies said. We got this, they assured their nervous fan base. Pay no attention to that 33-34 record from the middle of the July to the end of the regular season. Don’t mind the recent history which suggests teams earning a bye in the first round of the playoffs tend to resemble a creaky-kneed senior citizen trying to get out of their recliner chair after sitting for five hours when play resumes.

Get me rewrite!

With the exception of seven brilliant shutout innings from starter Zack Wheeler, they came out in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Mets Saturday at Citizens Bank Park looking very much like a group that hadn’t yet had its morning coffee.

Manager Rob Thomson talked earlier in the week about the importance of scoring early and then continuing to pile on.

“It's always the message. It's the constant message,” he preached. “Doesn't matter who you're playing. The game is about control in the strike zone. If you do that you're going to win a lot of games. Once you get the lead, then you keep going, and you keep putting pressure on the other club, because they will feel it.”

What happened instead was that Kyle Schwarber ripped his hardest-hit ball of the season – 115.8 mile per hour exit velocity – into the second deck to lead off the bottom of the first. After that the Phillies had just three more hits before pushing across a cosmetic run in the ninth.

The party line was that the time off was good for everybody, especially the relievers. Oops. The bullpen imploded in the eighth.

The result was an unsightly 6-2 loss by the team with baseball’s second-best record to a team that had to play all out until through a makeup doubleheader the day after the regular season ended just to qualify for the tournament.

When the Phillies failed to score in the bottom of the eighth, one of the sellout crowd of 45,751 rose from his seat, tossed his re rally towel over the railing and headed for the exits.  

Yes, this was only one game. Yes, the Phillies are fully capable of taking three of the next four and to win the best-of-five series and advance to the NLCS against the winner of the Padres-Dodgers grudge match.

But, again, while every Game 1 is important, this one carried even more potential to set the tone than most.

The Mets have been fire, playing heart-thumping, must-win games for weeks now. They squeaked into the postseason and then had to play three more games while the Phillies were fine-tuning and taking high-velocity batting practice off machines. They’re playing on grit and adrenalin and a deep-seated confidence that everything will go their way.

Catcher J.T. Realmuto noted on Friday’s workout day that the Mets seem to have that same team-of-destiny vibe that the Phillies rode all the way to the World Series two years ago. That way to stop that, he said, was to beat them in the opener, stopping whatever momentum they thought they had dead in its tracks.

It would also reinforce the notion, which the Phillies tout at every opportunity, that they’re practically bulletproof in The Bank.

But now what? The Phillies wasted one of the best starts of the year by one of the best pitchers in baseball. The Mets, held to one soft single by Wheeler, exploded for five against Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm – two of the most dominant relievers in the league – in the eighth.

If anything, they now believe more than ever the baseball gods have a hand on their shoulders and continue to sprinkle them with pixie dust.

And, by the way, it’s the third straight home playoff loss for the Phillies dating back to last season’s shocking NLCS loss to the Diamondbacks.

“We’ve got to flip the switch as an offense immediately,” first baseman Bryce Harper said. “They’re going to bury stuff and try to get us to chase as much as possible. They’ve got really good pitching. But we’ve got really good hitters in here who have to bear down and understand that we can do it.”

It’s the first time since the Phillies began their run of postseason runs in 2022 that they’ve lost the first game of the series.

Harper dismissed the idea that the five days off caused the team to lose momentum offensively. “I don’t think that had anything to do with it,” he said. Still, the reality is that a common thread among teams that have been upset after having the bye is that they tend not to score many runs.

Regardless, the path to their promised land just became considerably trickier, and they have nobody but themselves to blame.

“This was a tough loss,” Wheeler said. “It’s not where we want to be. It’s important to get out of here with a split. We’ve got to win one (on Sunday) while we’re home.”

The Phillies know what they have to do now. Of course, like most things in this word, it’s easier said than done.

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