If there is to be an epic comeback, the Phillies need Bryce Harper to don his Red October cape again

LOS ANGELES — As all heck broke loose in the frenzied ninth inning, most of the Phillies stood on the top step of the dugout, banged on the padded railing, and rooted for a miracle comeback that almost happened.

Bryce Harper sat among them near the end of the bench.

Paging Mr. (Red) October.

Has anybody seen him?

Scream all you want about Rob Thomson’s management of the bullpen, or his choice to play for the tie Monday night by having Bryson Stott bunt with nobody out and slow-footed Nick Castellanos on second base, or any of the other half-dozen moves that fuel sports-talk radio.

» READ MORE: Bryce Harper is ready to become Mr. Red October again for the Phillies. There’s only one thing missing ...

The Phillies’ season is on the brink of extinction after only two games in the National League Division Series because Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trea Turner — the three best hitters in the lineup — are 2-for-21 with 11 strikeouts.

Period. Full stop. Thanks for playing.

That’s why the Phillies are faced with trying to do what only 10 of 90 teams have done in baseball history: Win a best-of-five series after losing the first two games.

“I think those guys are trying to do a little too much right now,” Thomson said, “instead of just being themselves and looking for base hits and the power will come.”

Harper insists that isn’t the case. If he wants, he could point to the first inning in Game 2 when he laid off a two-strike curveball in the dirt from Dodgers starter Blake Snell and worked a two-out walk on six pitches.

But the pitches that are burned into Harper’s mind in this series are the ones he missed. Like most teams, the Dodgers haven’t thrown him many fastballs. But they have surprisingly attacked him and Schwarber with strikes more than they’ve tried to get them to swing at pitches out of the zone.

“Obviously I’ve missed some pitches over the last couple of days,” Harper said Tuesday after a brief workout at Dodger Stadium. “Missed a changeup from [Emmet] Sheehan in that 1-2 count [in Game 2]. Missed a couple pitches from [Shohei] Ohtani [in Game 1]. I’ve obviously expanded a little bit. I think that third at-bat against Snell, I expanded a little bit.

“But I think, all in all, not where I want to be, obviously, in the results, but feeling good.”

Hitting coach Kevin Long sees it the same way.

“I don’t feel like he’s in a bad spot,” Long said. “I feel like he’s doing a good job of controlling the strike zone, for the most part. There’s a chase here and there. He probably thinks that he could hit a couple fastballs that have kind of got by him. He probably needs to be a little bit more ready for the fastball, but, other than that, he’s been pitched really tough.”

» READ MORE: Like the 1980 team, these Phillies have a ‘sense of urgency’ to win it all. Can they get it done, too?

Take, for instance, the sixth inning of Game 2. After Turner and Schwarber worked consecutive one-out walks against Snell in a scoreless game, Harper came to the plate.

“I feel like that was going to be the builder there, right?” Schwarber said.

Everybody did. It doesn’t take a long memory to recount Mr. Red October’s pennant-clinching, bedlam-inducing homer in 2022. Or the in-your-face stares at loud-mouthed Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia after two homers in Game 3 of the 2023 division series.

Entering this postseason, Harper had 17 homers in 53 postseason games. His 1.016 OPS ranked second among 64 active players with at least 100 plate appearances in the playoffs.

Think of what that version of Harper would have done.

Instead, it was like the Phillies got a Harper impostor.

As expected, Snell didn’t throw Harper a heater. He started him with a slider in the dirt for a ball. Harper swung at four of the next five pitches. All four were sliders. Three were out of the strike zone, including a 91-mph slider below the knees and off the plate for his third whiff of the series.

“I thought [Snell] did a good job of mixing it up to both sides of the plate,” Harper said. “He just did a good job, and couldn’t really get much off him.”

Harper isn’t alone. The Phillies are built on power and home runs. They didn’t go deep in Game 1 or 2. They’re 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position. They have five extra-base hits in 18 innings, none from Turner, Schwarber, or Harper.

Schwarber is Harper’s co-conspirator in the disappearing act, going 0-for-10 with five strikeouts after bashing 56 homers in the regular season and hearing “M-V-P” chants when he stepped to the plate in Citizens Bank Park.

Like the rest of the Phillies, he heard boos in Game 2.

» READ MORE: How far will the Phillies go in the playoffs? Outs 13-21 will likely determine their fate.

“I think the main thing is we’ve attacked those guys,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Harper and Schwarber. “We haven’t been scared off using the fastball. I think we crowd them just enough. I think we go soft just enough. And I think we change eye level.”

“Up to this point, we’ve done a really nice job of keeping those guys at bay. We’ve still got some work to do and try to keep those guys asleep.”

When it’s over — and it’s all but over already — maybe we’ll learn that Harper is limited by the inflamed right wrist that sidelined him for most of June. Thomson said before the series that he doesn’t believe Harper’s wrist is a factor.

“I really don’t think so,” Thomson said. “You get him through the year healthy — he’s going to have his ups and downs — but once you get him to this point, I always feel like he’s in a good spot right about now. This time of year is his time of year. It never leaves my mind."

Maybe Mr. Red October will show up at Dodger Stadium. If so, history says the Phillies still have a chance.

But Harper didn’t get off the end of the bench in the ninth inning Monday night. The game ended with Schwarber on deck and Harper behind him.

“First one to three [wins], and obviously they’re not there yet,” Harper said. “We’ve got to play the best baseball we can and understand we’re a good team in here. Anything can happen in the next couple days.

“Just got to flip the script.”