Are you back in with the Phillies NOW?

In their first playoff game in 11 years, more than 4,000 day, since Ryan Howard blew out his Achilles’ tendon and his career, the Phillies returned to the postseason against the same St. Louis Cardinals team who ripped the city’s heart out that October night in 2011.

And for eight innings, it looked like the next chapter, more than a decade in the making, would bring more of the same – the Phillies being unable to hit and unable to support a stellar effort by one of their best pitchers.

A pinch hit home run by Juan Yepez in the bottom of the seventh inning put the Cardinals up two, and the Phillies looked like they were going to do what so many vocal doubters predicted they would – lose in frustrating fashion, with their highly-touted lineup crumbling under the pressure of the playoffs, and have it be a quick two games and back home for the winter.

But then St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol decided to trust analytics instead of managing a baseball game the right way.

After pulling starter Jose Quintana after just 75 pitches and 5 1/3 scoreless innings, in the eighth inning, with Geovanny Gallegos pitching well in relief, he yanked him to go to closer Ryan Helsley for an unnecessary five-out save.

It’s not like the Cardinals were in trouble and needed him to save the game an inning early. It was unnecessarily taxing his closer in Game 1 of a series.

Look, even if it worked, he put him at risk of not being available in a closing situation in Game 2.

But it didn’t work, and the Phillies noticed it.

The Phillies scored six runs in the top of the ninth, didn’t hit a ball harder than 91 MPH, and stunned the Cardinals 6-3 in Game 1 of the best-of-three Wild Card round.

Helsley got the first out of the ninth inning, striking out Rhys Hoskins. But it was obvious he was having a hard time finding the plate. His first pitch was a strike. His next five pitches were balls. Hoskins swung at two of them. Neither of them were close:

It was evident then that Helsley wasn’t long for the inning.

J.T Realmuto followed with a line drive single to left field (90.7 MPH Exit velocity), forcing Helsley to go to the stretch, where he was even more wild.

He walked Bryce Harper… and Marmol kept him in.

He walked Nick Castellanos, almost hitting him in the head twice… and Marmol left him in.

He hit Alec Bohm in the shoulder to give the Phillies a run.

Marmol finally pulled him from the game, but not before pulling off a fake injury examination with the team trainer to allow his relievers to get warm since he waited so long to get them up in the bullpen.

Finally, he turned to Andre Pallante to face Jean Segura.

The Pallante decision was a curious one for sure. Jack Flaherty was also warming, and although Flaherty has predominantly been a starter in his career, he is a strikeout pitcher who had 21 strikeouts in his last 18 innings.

Meanwhile Pallante, who had nine holds this season, is nothing of the sort. In fact, since September 3, Pallante has been leaking oil. In 12 appearances he’d pitched just 10 2/3 innings with a 5.91 ERA with only four strikeouts. Batters were slashing .341/.420/.477 for an .897 OPS.

So he went to a contact pitcher against a contact hitter, rather than a strikeout pitcher. Not to mention, Segura is one of the most clutch hitters late in games with runners in scoring position.

After all, this season in the ninth inning, Segura hit .355 with a .412 on base percentage. Not to mention, Segura just ended the longest drought of any individual player without playing a playoff game. The stage was setting up perfectly for a contact hitter.

Segura is a guy who doesn’t try to do too much at the plate late in games. He takes what is given him, and, well, He took what was given to him and hit it 88.5 MPH… but in just the right location:

Stairs rips one into the night, it wasn’t. Nor was it the Phillies do it to Broxton again. But it was memorable. It will go down as one of the better postseason moments in Phillies history.

Consider the following:

“He can hit anything,” Bohm said after the game. And he isn’t wrong:

It’s OK to admit it. Go ahead. It’ll feel good.

Meanwhile, a savvy move by manager Rob Thomson to pinch run for Bohm (the insurance run) with Edmundo Sosa turned out to be brilliant, as it was eventually the game winning run and well, his scoring was this close:

Then Brandon Marsh came up and hit a (cough) single (cough) past the best defensive third baseman in the world:

WHAT WAS THAT FRANZKE SAID AT THE END? CARDINALS FANS???? LEAVING???? BUT… BUT… ISN’T IT BASEBALL HEAVEN?

Frontrunners.

Meanwhile Marmol, doing his best Nero impression, never called the bullpen again. He just let a mediocre-at-best, extra starter/long man contact pitcher get abused in Game 1 of a best-of-3 rather than try to keep the score close enough for his team to come back.

It’s like managers lose all perspective on bullpen management in the playoffs every year.

But hey, the Phillies will take it.

And it’s not all poor managing by Marmol and poor pitching by the Cardinals. Give the Phillies credit. They finally had the right approach at the plate in the ninth inning after having such a putrid team approach in the first eight innings.

It shouldn’t be overlooked, but Harper and Castellanos walking in the ninth were huge plate appearances by both of them.

Harper was down in the count early but worked his way back by reading Helsley like a book.

And Castellanos, who cases more pitches than any hitter in baseball, had a moment of zen and laid off a pitch he would normally chase to work his walk.

Segura, Stott, Marsh, just put balls in play, proving that balls in play are better than striking out. Crazy, right?

So, there was a lot of good for the Phillies, but the best part of the Phillies in Game 1 was Zack Wheeler.

Wheeler allowed a leadoff hit to Lars Nootbaar in the bottom of the first, then retired 15 of the next 16 hitters, yielding only a hit by pitch to Paul Goldschmidt.

Wheeler got himself in a little bind in the bottom of the sixth, giving up a single to Tommy Edman and walking Nootbaar with nobody out. But then he bore down and got Albert Pujols to ground into a double play:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1578475588423077889

And this was followed by him getting Goldschmidt to hit a sharp groundout to Bohm to get out of the inning unscathed.

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1578476199965495297

While neither play was especially difficult, credit Bohm on making both plays. Six months ago, at least one of them was an error with Bohm, no doubt.

If there was a cause for concern, the bullpen allowed all three Cardinals runs.

Jose Alvarado, who was lights out for three months, looked like he didn’t trust his splitter, and leaned on his cutter a bit too much, including this pitch to Yepes that looked like it was going to sink the Phillies:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1578481543760457728

If you can throw 100, why come up and in at 93 to a power-hitting pinch hitter?

Additionally, Zach Eflin wasn’t great in the ninth inning. He got out of the inning, but he gave up a run, a couple hits, a walk and let the tying run reach the plate. Not the kind of inspiring outing you wanted from the two guys you supposedly “trust the most” in the bullpen.

On the other side of the coin, David Robertson, who had looked terrible in his last few outings of the season, pitched a dominating bottom of the eighth. Maybe that’s a good sign that what we saw in September was just a blip.

The Phillies can advance to the NLDS Saturday behind Aaron Nola, who was lights out in the game that clinched the Phillies a playoff berth against Houston on Monday.

A win, and they head to Atlanta to face the defending World Champion Braves on Tuesday.

A loss, and it comes down to a one-game, do-or-die contest against the Cardinals Sunday night.

Miles Mikolas will pitch for the Cardinals Saturday.

And believe it or not, not just will one more win allow the Phillies to advance, they are four wins from the NLCS. Eight wins from the World Series.

Not predicting either… but it’s time for all of you, yes YOU. All of YOU. To go all in with the Phillies and enjoy Red October.