Against Braves, the Phillies’ mission is much bigger than the NL East
This next week and a half is as much about setting a tone as it is about winning the NL East or securing a first-round playoff bye.
Call it the curse of Michael Martínez.
Fifteen years ago this month, the Phillies closed out a 102-win season by beating the Braves in 13 innings in their regular season finale to cap off a three-game sweep in Atlanta. There was one problem: The Phillies had already locked up the No. 1 seed in the National League, while the Braves needed just one measly win to make the playoffs over the Cardinals, the Phillies’ longtime nemesis. Thanks in large part to Martinez’s game-saving catch in the 10th inning of Game 162, the Phillies wound up playing St. Louis in the divisional round. It didn’t end well.
The intervening decade and a half has yielded a surprising dearth of memorable late-season series between the Phillies and Braves. As rich as the recent October history is between these two teams, it isn’t a stretch to say that Friday night will mark the start of the biggest regular season matchup between these two teams in at least five years. The last time the Phillies and Braves faced each other this late in the season while this close to each other was 2021, when the Phillies traveled to Atlanta down 2½ games with six games to play. The Braves won all three of those games.
» READ MORE: The Phillies are a different team since they last played the Braves. And this time the NL East could be on the line.
That 2021 series is worth some consideration as the Phillies carry a four-game deficit into this weekend’s four-game series at Citizens Bank Park. One can argue that the present era’s origin story actually begins there instead of a year later, when the Phillies beat the Braves in the National League Division Series en route to their first World Series appearance since 2009. The magnitude of 2022 was its improbability, and its improbability had every thing to do with 2021.
Remember Aug. 8, 2021? Zack Wheeler pitched a shutout against the Mets, holding his former team to just three base runners while striking out 11. The victory was the Phillies’ eighth straight and left them with a two-game lead over the Mets and a 2½-game lead over the Braves atop the NL East. In less than a week, Atlanta was in first place. In less than two months, the Braves were World Series champions.
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The Phillies’ eventual postseason victories over the Braves in 2022 and 2023 would have been sweet even without the disappointments that preceded them. But they would not have signified what they did. The Phillies turned out to have a roster that was the exact opposite of what it had steadily led us to believe. They were a team that, regardless of circumstances, demanded that you give them the benefit of the doubt.
Therein lie the stakes of this weekend’s series and the one that will follow in Atlanta next weekend. The most pressing concern is the concrete one: Seven games against a team that holds a four-game lead for both the division title and one of the NL’s two wild-card-round byes. Although it would take six wins in seven games, there is at least a chance the Phillies could be in first place in the NL East before the Eagles kickoff in Week 1. There’s also a chance they could be virtually eliminated from that possibility.
The bigger drama is the existential stakes.
Five years after that 2021 disappointment, which itself came three years after the Fightin’ Gabe Kaplers held onto first place for a month only to lose 31 of 43 and watch the Braves celebrate, the Phillies can become a team that has come full circle in one of two opposite directions. In the minds of many, their trajectory since the 2023 NLDS playoff win over Atlanta has been a regression toward who they were in September of 2021, and for much of the four seasons prior. Such a characterization drastically undersells what they have accomplished. They are trending toward five straight playoff berths, two straight division titles, and an improved regular season win total throughout. But it also speaks to the maddening nature of this team that it has spent the entire time yo-yoing between the bottom falling out and the top blowing off and neither of them ever happening. Maddening, but also impressive.
» READ MORE: Murphy: There’s one big reason to think that Andrew Painter’s transformation is for real
Therein lies the intrigue of the next 10 days. The Phillies have arrived at a moment where both outcomes will feel equally possible in every game they play. That is usually the way the vibe feels in a true prove-it moment.
“Hopefully the weather starts cooling down, get a little bit of fall weather feel, and it starts feeling playoff-y, and the fan base is going to be rocking and rolling, and look forward to a rowdy weekend,” Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber said after they wrapped up an interminable West Coast swing that saw them win six of their last seven games.
This next week and a half is as much about setting a tone as it is about winning the NL East or securing a first-round playoff bye. It is an opportunity to summon ghosts, of either Red October or Black September.
With one month left in the season, the Phillies are jockeying for playoff positioning in the National League. And things are about to heat up with a critical three-game series in Arizona. Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen joins Phillies Extra to discuss the wild-card race, the drama involving star second baseman Ketel Marte, and the 2023 NLCS, which left scars in Philadelphia that still haven't healed. Watch here.
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