Phillies watching Astros celebrate a World Series win is ‘big fuel for next year’

HOUSTON — The run that captivated a region started 29 days earlier with a 100.8 mph fastball that smacked Alec Bohm in the elbow and allowed the Phillies to dream.

It ended Saturday night with three players refusing to move from the top step of the dugout as streamers fell from the roof of Minute Maid Park, the Astros stormed from their dugout, and a makeshift stage was assembled in the infield so Houston could receive their World Series trophy.

The end to this improbable month would always be painful for the Phillies if it ended without them on that stage, but that didn’t make it any easier for them after a 4-1 Game 6 loss to watch the Astros celebrate — something the Phils did four times in the last four weeks — from the visiting dugout.

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“It wasn’t pleasant. It stings a lot,” said Brandon Marsh who watched alongside Kyle Schwarber and Bryson Stott as the player with a championship ring felt the pain with the team’s two youngest hitters. “You definitely don’t want to be on the wrong end of the World Series. You get here and you want to win it. Watching them dogpile is big fuel for next year.”

The Phillies were built last offseason to reach October but another postseason miss seemed possible just days before they finally secured a place in the dance. This wasn’t a Cinderella story but it did seem to come out of nowhere. They reached the postseason as the National League’s third wild card — a newly created playoff berth — and then played like title contenders.

“We said it in March when everyone got together that this was a postseason team,” Stott said. “We got here and got a taste of it and want to be back for sure.”

There was Bohm’s hit-by-pitch against St. Louis that kept an inning alive long enough for Jean Segura to leap into the air after slapping a go-ahead single. There was Bryce Harper’s homer in the wild-card clincher and Nick Castellanos’ sliding grab in the opener of the Divisional Series against Atlanta.

Rhys Hoskins punctuated South Philly’s first postseason game in 11 years by slamming his bat into the ground after hitting a homer that rocked the ballpark. Harper said Citizens Bank Park was his house and treated October like his month. Kyle Schwarber turned the postseason into a fest, the team danced on their own, and the rally towels waved like they used to do.

“We heard about it. ‘Get to the playoffs and you’ll see it.’ With us, it’s been a long time and we hadn’t seen it,” Aaron Nola said. “We saw it. And it was cool. It was awesome. I’ll keep saying that it’s addictive. Because with myself, as a starting pitcher, I just wanted to play everyday. On off days, I was like gosh, I want to get back out there and be out in front of this crowd again.”

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Pitchers and catchers will report to Clearwater, Fla. in the middle of February — roughly 100 days from Saturday’s crushing finale — and they’ll use this run as motivation when they begin anew. There will be new pieces at spring training but the majority of the roster will resemble the players who hugged each other Saturday night in a clubhouse, seeming to appreciate the run they went on.

“Making the last out, watching them catch it and hearing everyone yell and seeing them run out of the dugout, that’s not something that I really enjoy,” Castellanos said. “But I took it in. I let all my feelings kind of settle in and I’m excited for the offseason.

“This is just the beginning. Everyone who is on this team had this run and has played in the postseason before. All these guys on the Astros had runs like this. They played postseason baseball. Postseason baseball is a different animal from the regular season. So many of the guys on this team went on that run blind with the exception of Schwarber. I got my first postseason win this year. So many of this postseason was firsts for me and firsts for so many people in this locker room. We were only two wins away from being the best team.”

The Phillies will likely upgrade their starting rotation and add another bat to their lineup. It’s safe to expect that they’ll enter next season as division contenders with postseason expectations. They tasted the playoffs in October and finished November in the World Series. Now they’ll be counted on to get back.

“We should definitely be proud after what we went through the whole year and how we got there. Things that went on through the course of the year,” Schwarber said. “To see how this team came closer and how we got into the playoffs and the bond got even closer after that. We kept pushing it. No one believed more than us that we could do this thing. We ran into a really good club. But we should definitely be appreciative and be really proud of what we did.

“The other thing is that there’s the taste now. That’s the positive thing. It’s going to be a quick offseason now. Everyone is going to have that taste in their mouth and know what it takes to do it. So it’ll be fun.”

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A group of players pulled chairs around Hoskins’ locker, remaining unshowered and in their uniforms for one final postgame chat. This, Hoskins told his teammates, was the most fun he ever had playing baseball. Garrett Stubbs told him it felt like playing in college again. The Phillies made it to the postseason with a talented roster and the highest payroll in franchise history.

But they also made it two wins shy of having that stage assembled for them because of the chemistry they developed in their clubhouse. There was a karaoke night, off-day dinners where veterans hung with rookies, postgame beverages around Hoskins’ stall, and a group that didn’t seem to have cliques.

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It’s hard to measure chemistry, but it was impossible to deny it as the Phillies kept winning. And it was there when the winning stopped, when the only thing the Phillies could do was watch. Now they hope it fuels them.

“We expect to be here next year and the year after,” Hoskins said. “...Experience is great. It’s something that a lot of us will cherish forever and it’s also something that we’ll be able to draw back on.”