The Philadelphia Phillies left home 17 days ago, lugging around an interim manager unsure about his future, a decade-long playoff drought and almost that much skepticism.
They will return with a better than fighting chance to reach the National League Championship Series.
A bumpy but prosperous season-ending road trip snapped the playoff hex, reversing their fortunes. A dominant two-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals served notice they had staying power.
And a Game 1 thumping in the NL Division Series might have turned the tide against the defending World Series champions.
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Fortunes shift quickly in October and so do moods, and at suburban Atlanta’s Truist Park, a cavalcade of timely Phillies hits turned giddy anticipation into heightened concern and now, perhaps, total panic after a 101-win season.
The Phillies broke serve in the most impactful way possible Tuesday, flying into Cobb County on adrenaline alone and toppling Atlanta ace Max Fried in a 7-6 victory, one in which their No. 3 starter, Ranger Suarez, wobbled into the fourth inning but, like his bullpen mates, made a series of huge pitches with runners on base against the nearly peerless Braves lineup.
Now, it gets a little too real: Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola start the next two games, concerning in any scenario but horrifying when you consider they did not yield a single run to the powerful Cardinals and can eliminate you by Friday.
The Phillies? They’ve stolen so much house money, they have enough to build one.
They played just well enough on that season-ending trip, winning four of 10 games, to secure the final wild-card spot. Then, for a team that sent expectations sky-high by spending $742 million to import sluggers and aces the past four seasons, they got hot in a most humble fashion, winning Game 1s against St. Louis and Atlanta without benefit of a home run.
Tuesday’s was a master class in execution, with Nick Castellanos – signed for $100 million in March to cap Philly’s four-year Cold War buildup – banging out three hits and driving in three runs, all with two outs, to erase the taste of a subpar season. Bryce Harper and Matt Vierling laid down sacrifice bunts. The Phillies scored in four of the first five innings.
The lead was 7-1 early and 7-3 in the ninth, when newbie closer Zach Eflin came after the Braves and nearly paid for it, yielding a three-run Matt Olson homer but finishing without incident. They fairly bounced off the field and into the driver’s seat.
Uh-oh.
Atlanta will trot out 20-game winner Kyle Wright in Wednesday’s Game 2. Stubborn but still effective veteran Charlie Morton is likely tabbed for Game 3. And rookie sensation Spencer Strider will almost certainly figure into turning this NLDS in Atlanta’s favor at some point.
That’s not necessarily Threat Level Midnight, but Wheeler and Nola are good enough to short circuit the plan before it can be executed.
Wheeler will make his second career playoff start about an hour from where he grew up northeast of Atlanta. He can pitch his current team into a 2-0 NLDS lead before, finally, heading back to Philly for the first time since losing an 8-7, 11-inning gut punch to these Braves on Sept. 25.
The franchise changed forever in the time since. Rob Thomson, the well-liked interim manager, saw that tag removed from his job title and will manage the Phillies through 2024. Playoff newbies like Jean Segura and Nola now feel like October veterans.
Philly will be jacked to greet them.
“We’ve been on the road forever now, it feels like,” says Wheeler. “We expected that and we’re mentally ready for it. And we’re just trying to win ballgames, doesn’t matter where we are at.”
In Wednesday’s Game 2, it will be one more time at Truist Park and finally, a trip home, maybe needing just one of the two games to continue this most unlikely trip.
