Bryson Stott’s grand slam was bigger than it looked. Beware, Braves. The Phillies are back and rolling.

They had been waiting for the big one.

In the sixth inning of Game 2, it finally came.

What matters now is all that comes with it.

Bryson Stott’s series-sealing grand slam off Miami’s Andrew Nardi wasn’t just a gratuitous piece of pyrotechnics. Yes, it gave Citizens Bank Park the lopsided score it so richly deserved. But it also served a purpose far greater.

» READ MORE: Bryson Stott, Aaron Nola lead the Phillies to the inevitable NLDS battle with the Braves | Marcus Hayes

It was an antiperspirant. It was a stress reliever. It was a bullpen-saver.

It was everything the Phillies could have hoped for out of a wild-card clincher. Maybe more.

“I was standing on second base just laughing and smiling,” Bryce Harper said of Stott’s slam, which slammed the door shut on the Marlins in Game 2 and allowed the Phillies to cruise to a 7-1 NLDS-clinching win. “I gave him a big hug and told him I loved him. Just a really cool moment for him. A really cool moment for everybody.”

Everybody, indeed.

Think about it. When Stott stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth inning, Game 2 of this wild-card series wasn’t anything close to the laugher it would soon become. The Phillies were up by three runs and Aaron Nola was dealing, but there was action in the bullpen and there were three innings to kill. José Alvarado was getting loose for a second straight high-leverage outing. After that, who knows.

Then came a first-pitch fastball and the sweetest sequence of sounds.

Crack.

Roar.

Gong.

For a second straight year, the Phillies are headed for a National League Division Series showdown with the Braves. And, for a second straight year, they find themselves in as good of a position as any of them could have hoped. Stott’s grand slam may not go down as the blow that punched the Phillies’ ticket to Atlanta. But it sure could go down as the thing that gave them their best chance at surviving.

A best-of-three series is not supposed to feel this easy. It certainly did not feel that way last year in St. Louis. But this is a different team from last year. The Phillies entered this series as the heavy favorites, and they acted the part in every way. They never trailed. In fact, there were only four innings in which they did not hold a lead. The first and the second inning of Game 1. The first and the second inning of Game 2. That’s it.

On Wednesday night, the Phillies struck their first blow on a Kyle Schwarber double that rattled around the right-field corner long enough to allow Cristian Pache to score all the way from first base. Trea Turner followed it up with an RBI single off the pitcher — literally, off Braxton Garrett’s body — and through the right side of the infield. J.T. Realmuto led off the fourth with a solo home run to push the Phillies lead to 3-0.

Backed by impeccable infield defense, Nola escaped the little trouble that he encountered. Rob Thomson seemed poised to turn things over to his high-leverage relievers in the seventh. Stott ensured that he never had to.

This was what heavyweights do. It is the kind of performance they turn in. Zack Wheeler, Nola — both of them are back where they were when they took the world by storm last postseason. Same goes for Alvarado. The rest of the bullpen is as fresh as it could possibly be.

Credit Stott with ending it when it needed to be ended. Credit him with doing it in a definitive manner.

“Huge moment,” said Phillies closer Craig Kimbrel. “Amazing to see.”

The home run allowed Thomson to give rookie Orion Kerkering his first taste of a postseason mound. The kid responded the same way he did in his regular-season debut. Three up. Three down. Nine pitches. Eight strikes. File all of that away. Kerkering will be back. The moments will be bigger.

» READ MORE: Phillies rookie Orion Kerkering ‘responded great’ in his postseason debut

“It looked like he was in his backyard playing Wiffle Ball because he was just normal,” Thomson said of the rookie. “We tried to get him a spot like that, just to see what — how he would respond to it, and he responded great. I think we just keep moving forward with him. So far, so good. The poise, the calmness is there.”

The ease with which the Phillies dispatched the Marlins will trickle down through the rotation. They did not come close to needing the contributions of any of the three potential Game 1 starters. Ranger Suárez will almost certainly get the call, as he did in last year’s NLDS, though Thomson declined to discuss his plans in the immediate aftermath of the clincher on Wednesday night. Cristopher Sanchez and Taijuan Walker are the other options.

The Braves are an even bigger behemoth this year. They may be in possession of the best big league offense since the steroid era. The Phillies? They’re in possession of something that is equally as important this time of year. Momentum, belief, vibes. Call it what you will. More than anything, they still have the benefit of the doubt.