For the diehard Phillies fan, the journey usually starts around Valentine’s Day when pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater to begin the long road to the regular season. The spring starts with a seed of hope. We hope that the big free agent acquisitions will produce. We hope the prospects will realize their potential as they make their way up the minor league ladder and into the Show. We hope the starting rotation will measure up with the elite staffs in the National League East. We hope the bullpen will finally learn how to get outs. We hope the manager is the right man for the job.

We hope.

This year, as the owners and players worked through an employer-imposed lockout and toward a new collective bargaining agreement, we were forced to wait a bit. Eventually, a deal was struck and a full 162-game season began with a delay of just a couple weeks.

The Phillies stumbled out of the starting block. After two months, the team’s record stood at 21-29, and Joe Girardi was handed his walking papers. Bryson Stott was borderline unplayable and demoted to the minor leagues in search of his swing. Kyle Schwarber was ice cold, and the whispers about J.T. Realmuto’s decline grew louder. Closer Corey Knebel could not find the strike zone with any consistency. Ranger Suarez looked like a man who lost the magic that carried him through an exceptional 2021 campaign.

Questions abounded. The Phillies looked like the same mediocre, stuck-in-the-mud organization they had been since Ryan Howard tore his Achilles on a crisp October night in 2011.

Rob Thomson, a longtime bench coach, finally got his shot to occupy the manager’s chair. And the Phillies did something curious, something we hadn’t seen in this city from our baseball team in some time. They persevered, and they took off.

During the pivotal month of June, Kyle Schwarber hit 12 home runs and drove in 27 RBI from his leadoff perch.  They went 19-8, turning their season around in the process. Unsung heroes like backup catcher Garrett Stubbs provided timely hits while Bryce Harper continued to deliver in the clutch.

All the while, we kept the faith, tuning in nightly to see if the Boys of Summer could keep it going. Plopping down on the couch and listening to Tom McCarthy and John Kruk call a game was a welcome relief after another day at work. On the weekend, maybe you turned on the radio to catch Franzke and LA while driving to the shore or sitting on the beach.

It wasn’t always easy. The Phillies went 0-10 against the scuffling Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs. They never could figure out the Mets. Bryce Harper went down for an extended period, victimized by a wayward Blake Snell fastball that broke his hand. Zack Eflin took his annual trip to the injured list, done in by a knee problem that has dogged him throughout his career. Former first round pick Mickey Moniak never could figure it out, struggling particularly against southpaws and offspeed pitches.

The front office, led by president Dave Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld, identified timely reinforcements. Pitcher Noah Syndergaard and centerfielder Brandon Marsh arrived from the Los Angeles Angels, providing some divine intervention at just the right time. Reliever Dave Robertson was imported from the Cubs to take the place of Knebel, who was felled by an injury that ended his season.

Darick Hall, called up from Lehigh Valley, provided much-needed pop from the left side of the plate while Harper rehabbed. Suarez got back on track. Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola also dominated, but the Phillies inexplicably failed to take advantage and win most of their starts. The defense remained a weakness. Mets analyst Keith Hernandez, who took a lot of heat in these parts for critical comments he made about the Phillies and their inability to play good, fundamental baseball, wasn’t exactly wrong.

On more than a few nights, the Phillies simply were not a good baseball team. Their relievers struggled to command the strike zone, their outfielders were sometimes a step slow, and their corner infielders would make their share of inexplicable errors.

Yet, through it all, this team kept grinding. They are a resilient squad tailor-made for a resilient city. As the Phillies kept finding ways to win games, the playoffs peered over the horizon, ever so distantly. Over time, we watched the impossible become the improbable, and the improbable turn into the inevitable. Meanwhile, the frustration and doubt that overtook the early-season hope were replaced by a renewed, if tepid, belief.

The Phillies seized the last ticket to the National League postseason. Or, more accurately, they backed into the playoffs while engaging in a prolonged standoff with the Milwaukee Brewers as both teams scuffled down the stretch. It took a near-perfect outing from Aaron Nola in the final series of the campaign for the Phillies to clinch the 3rd wild card berth.

Who could have predicted the run that began earlier this month? The runt of the National League playoff litter knocked off the St. Louis Cardinals, winners of the National League Central, in two games. Next up were the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves, dispatched in four tidy games. Finally, the Padres, slayers of the Mets and Dodgers, were bounced in five.

It took contributions from the entire roster and an energy from the Citizens Bank Park stands that simply does not exist anywhere else. Rhys Hoskins redeemed himself after an ice-cold start to the playoffs and some poor play in the field, smashing four home runs in the NLCS. Connor Brogdon, who has looked completely lost and devoid of confidence since August, stepped in during Game Four and stopped the early bleeding, pitching 2 1/3 solid innings that afforded the Phillies the stability they needed to start their comeback.

And, on a rain-soaked field in the eighth inning of Game 5, Harper cemented his legend in Philadelphia, launching a Robert Suárez offering into a gray October sky that would ultimately send the Phillies to the World Series:

 

The last three outs weren’t easy to secure, but the Fightin’ Phils found a way. Game 3 starter Ranger Suarez stepped back into his old closer’s role and, in two pitches, snuffed out out the Padres’ ninth-inning rally.

It’s been an eventful run, filled with insane peaks and dispiriting valleys. No one, not even the most devoted Phillies booster wearing the reddest of rose-colored glasses, could have foreseen this outcome. This team wasn’t supposed to be good enough to win at this level, not when the lights were brightest and the stakes the highest.

But the Phillies refused to be defined by their limitations. They persisted, and now they’re National League champs. Will it all end with owner John Middleton getting his “trophy back” and the Phillies parading down Broad Street?

I don’t know, but I hope.