Led by their stars, the Phillies are back in the playoffs. Anything can happen from here.
The Phillies are in the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season, and nothing that happened over the last six months matters anymore. Remember 2022?
Bryce Harper might’ve been the first to say it out loud. Or maybe it was Trea Turner. Either way, it became an unofficial motto amid the Phillies’ vomit-inducing ups and downs of the last few months.
Just get us in.
“Every year,” Harper said after one of those June games that gets lost in a 162-game haystack, ”we just want to get in the postseason and see what happens.”
So, here they were Sunday, at the end of a week from hell, with a nor’easter blowing through town, needing to win one stinkin’ game after losing four in a row to punch their ticket for tournament baseball and avoid entering the barroom debate over the worst collapse in franchise history.
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Here was Zack Wheeler, striking out the side in the first inning after the game was moved up by a half-hour to begin in dry conditions. Here was Kyle Schwarber, belly-flopping into second base after a two-run double in the second inning and, in a rare show of on-field emotion, screaming to the dugout, “Let’s go!”
And here was Harper, fouling off a slider, fastball, sinker, and splitter in succession before lining a 111.6-mph missile into the right-field bleachers in the fifth inning.
Led by their stars, the Phillies are in. At last. After four days of being showered in plenty of boos but not any booze, they actually won a game — 7-3 over the Rays —to sidestep the shame of nearly blowing a four-game lead with five to play and pocket the last of three National League wild cards.
Everybody exhale. Game 1 of the best-of-three wildcard miniseries begins at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Atlanta.
OK, Now what?
Because the point of just get us in is that nothing that happened over the last six months matters anymore. Not the 9-19 start that got the first manager fired. Not the late-summer surge that began in an Iowa cornfield. And certainly not the 9-14 finish that threatened to unravel it all.
The Phillies are in the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season, and anything can happen in the playoffs. Want proof? Think back only to 2022, when they didn’t get in until the third-to-last game of the season and went on a run to the World Series.
Since then, they’ve pushed the rock up the hill only to have it roll back on top of them. They lost at home in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series in 2023 and in the divisional round in 2024 and 2025.
Through it all, the organization prioritized continuity. The Phillies kept the core intact, and now, with a $320 million roster, legacies are on the line. For Harper. For Wheeler. For Schwarber. For catcher J.T. Realmuto, who broke an 0-for-34 spell with an RBI double in the second inning after being dropped to ninth in the order for the first time in his career.
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But at least they’re in. It’s a clean slate now. Well, sort of. There’s still a pitching toll to pay for the Phillies’ late-season swoon.
Wheeler had to start Game 162, so he won’t be able to start on regular rest in the wild card series. Cristopher Sánchez won’t be on regular rest until at least Game 2 against the Braves. Jesús Luzardo came off the injured list Sunday and, in his first game since Sept. 7, got three outs on four pitches in the eighth inning.
Maybe Aaron Nola can start Tuesday. Or maybe it will be rookie Andrew Painter.
Those were questions for later Sunday night on the flight to Atlanta. The Phillies were finally able to unfurl the plastic sheets above their lockers and pop the champagne.
They got in.
Finally.
Now, it’s up to them to take advantage.
Let's talk about the Phillies' bullpen. Larry Andersen happens to be an expert on the subject. The popular Phillies radio analyst had a 17-year major-league career in which he appeared in 699 games – all but one in relief. He joins Phillies Extra to break down the biggest question standing between the Phillies and a long run through October: How will they bridge the gap to closer Jhoan Duran? Watch here.
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