There wasn’t even a moment Thursday night when it felt like the Phillies were going to do it.

No big hit that made you sit up. No inning where the lineup started stringing things together. No “here we go!” moment. Aaron Nola gave up a three-run homer in the first inning of an elimination game, and from there, the Phillies mostly just watched their season end.

And maybe the most frustrating part is how familiar it all felt.

The bats disappeared again. The Phillies scored just two runs and never found a way to consistently get people on base and keep an inning moving. Bryce Harper’s eighth-inning at-bat almost felt like a snapshot of the whole problem: Facing Chris Sale, he chased three pitches outside the zone, struck out, and initially didn’t even realize the third strike had gotten away from the catcher.

This team has become far too dependent on Harper or Kyle Schwarber hitting the ball out of the park. The Phillies haven’t won a playoff game without a homer from one of them since Game 4 of the 2023 NLDS. Sometimes you need a single up the middle. Sometimes, somebody just needs to get on base.

And now look at the trajectory: World Series in 2022, NLCS in 2023, NLDS in 2024, NLDS again in 2025, Wild-card exit in 2026. That’s not running it back. That’s running backward.

Everyone feared last winter that bringing back essentially the same core would produce essentially the same problems. Somehow, it produced an even worse result. And now changing course gets harder: Harper, Schwarber, and Realmuto will all be 34 or older next season, while Trea Turner turns 33 with seven years left on his contract.

The window isn’t necessarily closed. The rotation alone gives this team too much talent to say that.

But the chance to change this roster before another wasted October has already passed.

They can’t spend another winter convincing themselves that next year the same group will finally be different.

The Uber Eats robots rolling around Philly have been called dystopian, creepy, and a sign of our increasingly automated future.

Naturally, Philadelphia responded by making a much weirder robot.

Meet Orifice the Awebot, a two-foot-tall pink creature with blinking blue eyes, blond hair, a permanently hanging tongue and — because apparently those features weren’t enough — an actual orifice on its rear end, as Stephanie Farr reported.

Artist Madison Polidoro created Orifice for the Ministry of Awe to act as a lighthearted counterpoint to the delivery bots, and it now roams Old City remotely controlled by a human, startling tourists, confusing dogs, and occasionally confronting Uber Eats robots.

Imagine knowing none of this and turning a corner near the Betsy Ross House to find that thing silently rolling toward you. Is it less dystopian than an Uber Eats robot? Debatable. Is it significantly more Philly? Of course it is.

Of all the things Philadelphia could become known for on social media, throwing cheesesteaks at people cannot be the next one.

A customer at Pat’s ordered a cheesesteak with Whiz and onions Wednesday, and instead of sitting down to actually eat it, the customer exchanged words with general manager Tom Francano, hurled the sandwich through the window at him, and ran away.

And yes, he was filming the whole thing.

The video later appeared online as a “food review” — titled “I Threw This Cheesesteak in His Face Geno’s Steaks.” Wrong cheesesteak shop, guys.

Pat’s owner Frank Olivieri offered a $5,000 reward, his IT team traced the video back to social media accounts, and by Thursday, the man had turned himself in.

Police charged him with harassment, and YouTube terminated the account where the video appeared. As Olivieri put it: “Thank God for stupidity.”

Hopefully that brings an end to Philadelphia’s brief experiment with cheesesteak-based assault. But seriously, let’s just eat the cheesesteak. There’s no need to weaponize it.

As if the Phillies hadn’t already done enough damage this week, the Eagles and Flyers decided to contribute.

The Eagles set the bar pretty low Monday night with a 27-7 loss to the Bears, a game in which the offense turned the ball over three times, the defense got picked apart by 38-year-old third-string quarterback Case Keenum, and Nick Sirianni acknowledged afterward that pretty much nobody played or coached well.

Two nights later, the Flyers opened their season at home with more excitement surrounding them than there’s been in years.

They lost 7-0. To the Penguins. The same rival they knocked out of the playoffs last spring. The Flyers were booed off the ice after getting outshot 38-19 and looking nothing like the team that made hockey fun again six months ago.

Thursday was better, if only because it would have been difficult to be worse. Backup goalie Joseph Woll made 41 saves against the Devils and somehow kept the Flyers in it. They even held a 2-1 lead in the third before giving up the tying goal and losing, 3-2, in overtime.

So, progress? Technically?

The Phillies are done. The Eagles just got blown out. The Flyers are 0-1-1 and have already been outscored 10-2.

We’re not even a week into October. Can everybody please stop embarrassing us?

The Academy of Natural Sciences closed Sunday after nearly 200 years of welcoming the public. About 8,000 people visited Saturday alone, more than 100,000 people signed petitions to save it, and families spent its final day leaving notes on the walls and saying tearful goodbyes.

And yet, there may still be a lifeline.

The William Penn Foundation has offered to cover the operating subsidy Drexel had been providing for at least another year, giving everyone time to figure out whether there is a sustainable way to keep the museum alive.

Drexel hasn’t said yes. It hasn’t said no, either. The university says it needs more specifics and that the building has significant maintenance needs, which are all reasonable things to be sorted out. But sort them out.

This people of Philadelphia just spent a month making it abundantly clear how much the Academy means to people. The money being offered wouldn’t solve every problem, but it could buy something Drexel claimed it didn’t have when it announced the closure: time.

The dinosaurs are already behind locked doors. At least give this a real chance before deciding they stay there.

Last year, the Sixers brought back the Allen Iverson-era black jerseys for the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Finals team. They were supposed to be a one-season nostalgia trip.

Apparently, everyone took one look and said, actually, let’s keep those.

The Sixers announced their six-uniform rotation this week, and the beloved black alternates made the cut again, despite classic uniforms typically being reserved for anniversaries. Which means this season we get the slightly surreal sight of LeBron James wearing an Iverson-era Sixers jersey!

Honestly, what more evidence do we need? They looked great in 2001, they looked great last season, and they’re going to look great on LeBron, Tyrese Maxey, and Jaylen Brown.

Definitely a uniform we should NOT retire any time soon.