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How the Phillies Deal with the “Little Things” will Dictate the Rest of the NLDS

Anthony SanFilippo

By Anthony SanFilippo

Published:

Oct 9, 2023; Cumberland, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson (28) forces out Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter Bryce Harper (3) for the final out of game two of the NLDS for the 2023 MLB playoffs at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

There are two ways that memories of what happened to the Phillies Monday night could go in the future.

Either their 5-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves in Game 2 of the NLDS that evened the best-of-5 series at one game apiece will go down as one of the worst losses in franchise playoff history, or it becomes a footnote in another Red October run to a World Series.

The path dictating how that takes root in our baseball recall will be determined in the next five days. But in the moment, it certainly feels like one of those games the Phillies should never have lost. That the outcome should never have happened the way it did.

It’s not the worst, even though it may feel like it in the moment.

There were a couple against the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 World Series – blowing a 14-8 lead in Game 4 and then Joe Carter (no further description necessary).

There was the Cliff Lee game against St. Louis in 2011, where he coughed up a 4-0 lead to the Cardinals in a Game 2 loss that led to the eventual 3-2 series defeat that ended the greatest era of Phillies baseball.

For readers of a certain age, there was Black Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1978 NLCS, too.

The thing is, in each of those four previous examples, the Phillies went on to lose the series. And this time, the series outcome remains unknown. There are a possible three games remaining. The Phillies need to win two of them and should have the pitching advantage in two of them as well. So, ranking how bad of a loss Game 2 was in the annals of the Phillies history is still to be determined.

What is already known is this:

You can’t make the little mistakes the Phillies made in Game 2 against a team as good as the Braves and expect to win. You might be able to get away with some of those mistakes in a regular season game against the Rockies, or the Pirates, or the Mets (who would likely screw up enough on their own to hand the game right back to you).

But against a juggernaut like the Braves, a team that won 104 games and shattered many offensive records in baseball, the little things add up against you far faster.

The little things were:

  • A poor jump by Alec Bohm on a base hit by Nick Castellanos that would have scored another run in the first inning.
  • Stranding 11 runners on base in the first seven innings
  • A poor play on a relay by Trea Turner
  • One bad pitch in an otherwise sensational performance by Zack Wheeler
  • J.T. Realmuto getting away from the game plan with one pitch call against Austin Riley and Jeff Hoffman being unable to execute that pitch.
  • Bryce Harper being over-aggressive on the base path and getting doubled off of first after a great catch by Michael Harris to end the game.

Not any one of these things is the singular reason they lost Game 2, although the missed opportunities at the plate, especially early in the game, probably haunted them the most, but collectively, those six little things turned a W into an L and made this a series when it didn’t have to be.

Let’s look at each:

Bohm’s Baserunning

Bohm had just singled to score Trea Turner and put the Phillies up 1-0 in the top of the first. Braves pitcher Max Fried looked, well, fried from the start. His fastball had little movement and quickly lost velocity. He leaned on his curveball way too often and the Phillies were doing a good job of spitting on it – except for Harper, who swung and missed at two of them that were hangers.  But Bohm’s exploits on the bases were not great. He had to stop at second on an opposite field single by Realmuto, mostly because he had to dodge the ball as it was hit right at him, which was unfortunate, because almost everyone can go first to third on a hit to right field.

But it was the next one that hurt.

Nick Castellanos ripped a base hit to left field. Braves leftfielder Eddie Rosario doesn’t have a great arm, and with two outs and the ball in front of you, you have to score there.

Except Bohm didn’t. He got a horrible jump from second, almost as if there was no secondary lead. As a result, Dusty Wathan has to hold him at third, and Bryson Stott grounds out with the bases loaded ending the inning. That turned out to be a big, missed opportunity to score a run.

Stranding a small island on base

It wasn’t just three in the first inning. Turner grounded out with Rojas on second and two outs in the second. Castellanos was on first in the third inning but Stott struck out and Cristian Pache flew out. In the fourth, Harper grounded out with runners on first and second. In the fifth, Johan Rojas struck out with Pache on second to end the inning. In the sixth Harper and Realmuto popped out in succession with runners on first and second. In the seventh, Brandon Marsh pinch hit for Pache with Stott on first and struck out and then Rojas flew out to end the inning.

The eighth inning was the only inning the Phillies didn’t have guys on base. We’ll get to the ninth inning in a bit, but they scored on a single in the first, a two-run homer by Realmuto in the third and a sacrifice fly in the fifth. That’s not enough.

The only two hits the Phillies had with runners in scoring position were Bohm’s first inning single that scored Turner and Castellanos’ first inning single that should have scored Bohm and didn’t.

That’s a lot of traffic and not enough production.

Trea’s Mental Lapse

Turner committed two errors in Game 2. The first one, he just booted a routine grounder, but that one never hurt the Phillies as Zack Wheeler was in the middle of recording the first six outs of the game via strikeout.


The second one, was incredibly befuddling.

Watch how Turner tries to field this throw from Castellanos. It defies logic – and really everything I’ve ever been told about fielding in baseball:


First of all, he is late to the ball. It wasn’t the most online throw by Castellanos, but if Turner takes another step toward it, he likely catches it and Acuna stays at third base. But even being late to the sot and wanting to field it on the hop, why are you fielding it on your back hand? That’s a much tougher play than putting your body in front of it and playing the hop of the ball. Trying to backhand it doesn’t leave you for margin of error or have your body in the proper position to gather the ball if it does eat you up a little bit.

It just seems like a lack of concentration for a split second, and it gifted the Braves a run – their first run of the series in 15 innings.

Wheeler Dealing

That hit by Albies was the first allowed by Wheeler in the game. He was dominant. How dominant?

It took until the 66th pitch of the game for the Braves to hit a ball out of the infield.

Wheeler had 10 strikeouts. That first hit allowed an unearned run to score, but that’s it.

So, when he comes out in the seventh inning, he gives up the second hit – a single to Matt Olson – then strikes out Marcel Ozuna on an absolutely nasty pitch.

But as good as Wheeler was in this game – and it was the second-longest postseason no-hit bid in Phillies history behind only Roy Halladay’s actual no-hitter against Cincinnati in 2010 – he made one bad pitch, and it was his last one, to Travis d’Arnaud, who weirdly enough, was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays by the Phillies for Halladay.


Some were arguing that Rob Thomson left Wheeler in too long. But, come on. The way he was pitching? And with how he had just struck out Ozuna? It was only his 92nd pitch of the game. He’s your best pitcher this season. He had allowed all of two singles to this point. It’s a no brainer to keep him in.

He just didn’t execute one pitch, and the Braves took advantage of it.

Going off-script

This is the one that bothered me the most in the moment, because ultimately, it’s the sequence that flipped the game from a Phillies win to a Phillies loss, although, as I mentioned earlier, the Phillies shouldn’t have even been in this situation if their offense didn’t come up small with a chance to tack on more runs.

However, the Phillies have had a great game plan on how to pitch the Braves, especially attacking them with velocity. There may be no better example than how they have pitched Austin Riley, who has struggled mightily with fastballs 97MPH or faster (.176 avg., .216 slugging percentage).

Jeff Hoffman, who was brought into the game to face the top of the Braves lineup, started Riley with a slider down and in that Riley fouled off.

That should have been a sign that he was looking for sliders down, especially since he struggles with the heat.

The second pitch was a fast ball at the top of the zone that Riley laid off. It was a close pitch, but it was a ball and it was a good take. But then he threw another fastball center cut, and Riley whiffed at it.

The fastball was still a problem.

He went back to a slider, throwing a dirt ball trying to get Riley to chase, since he was leaning out looking for it, but he laid off the bad pitch.

The next one was another fastball, but Hoffman yanked the pitch and it was down and away and was an easy take for Riley.

Now here’s where the decision-making goes awry.

It’s a 3-2 count. You have a base open. You have Gregory Soto ready to come into the game to face Matt Olson, who is up next. Olson does not hit lefties well at all.

I’m not suggesting intentionally walking Riley, but what I’m saying is not to be afraid to walk Riley. why not go back to the fastball up that he doesn’t react well to, especially with two strikes? If he lays off it and you walk him, fine, you have a matchup you are comfortable with coming up. If he chases it, you get out of the inning and are ready for Craig Kimbrel to try and shut it down in the ninth.

It seemed like a no brainer.

But Realmuto called for a slider, and Riley didn’t miss it. In fact, he got it so well he basically hit it with one hand on the bat and it went a long, long way:


The Phillies, for one pitch, got away from the gameplan, and just like that, they were trailing.

That’s the thing with the Braves – they are so good that they make you pay for the smallest of mistakes. It wasn’t a terrible pitch. It was just not the right one.

Star Turn

The game ended with an unbelievably wild play because, why not? Castellanos put a great swing on the pitch, Michael Harris made an ever better catch against the fence, and Harper never gave Stott a chance in the ninth because instead of stopping at second and waiting to see if the ball was caught, Harper, in his aggressive-style, made the turn at second and had to stop hard, slipped, retouch second and then try to get back to first. Spoiler alert: He didn’t –


Harper has to know to stop at second. He has to know he will score from second if Harris doesn’t catch that ball. He’s got to be smart enough to know that you need to give yourself every possible chance in a playoff game, in that moment, he wasn’t.

Again, this isn’t the reason they lost. It was just the punctuation mark on the loss.

But if there’s one thing about the Phillies we know is this, they will eat this L, but they won’t let it eat at them. Their famous for their resilience. They are coming home, and the world is just different in Citizens Bank Park. All that is important I mean, Castellanos is always the go to guy for sound bytes in times like this:


But what’s equally important is this – when it comes to these “little things” against Atlanta, they need to be Good Charlotte. Otherwise, it will be goodbye Philadelphia.

YouTube video

 

Anthony SanFilippo
Anthony SanFilippo

Anthony SanFilippo writes about the Phillies and Flyers for Crossing Broad and hosts a pair of related podcasts (Crossed Up and Snow the Goalie). A part of the Philadelphia sports media for a quarter century, Anthony also dabbles in acting, directing, teaching, and strategic marketing, which is why he has no time to do anything, but does it anyway. Follow him on Twitter @AntSanPhilly.

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