Phillies

The Phillies Won a Series in Arizona for Just the Third Time in the Last Decade

By Nick Piccone

Published: Sep 3rd, 2026 · 9:08 AM EDT

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The Phillies wrapped up a nine-game road trip Wednesday afternoon in Arizona, but they really wrapped it up Tuesday night. After winning the first two games of a critical series against the Diamondbacks at Chase Field, the Phillies put together one of their worst offensive efforts of the season in the series finale before heading home to begin a four-game set against the Atlanta Braves this weekend.

There should be some shame they feel for squandering another fantastic start from Andrew Painter Wednesday, who hurled seven scoreless innings and allowed only two hits to go along with six strikeouts and no walks. A win would have secured a wild card tiebreaker over Arizona, which would have been nice to notch, especially when they already have the tiebreaker with the team the Dbacks are mostly fighting for that last wild card position, the San Diego Padres. Wednesday’s win has the Dbacks holding that spot over the Padres for the time being, with the Phillies and Cubs comfortably up 5.5 games.

As annoying as games like Wednesday’s tend to be, I still can’t be super annoyed at a road trip that started 0-2 and ended 6-3. There were two bad losses early in Seattle, and they had some baseball angels looking over them in Anaheim, but the real test was in Phoenix. And the series opener on Monday had a feel that it was going to be another one of those heartbreaking late-inning losses.

But it wasn’t.

Then, on Tuesday, they put together one of their most solid wins of the season, defeating the D Backs 7-1. That win secured their first series win in Arizona since 2023 (3-1). Before that, the last time they won a series there was 2016, a 3-0 sweep.

Think about what the Phillies must be thinking. They’re eyeing the Braves for the division again. The Braves won Wednesday, so their lead is back up to four games, coincidentally enough. They probably don’t exactly view the Dbacks as huge rivals the way we as fans do. But I can’t imagine it not feeling good to go into that place on the end of a long road trip and take the first two games. If you’ve seen this team on a long road trip before, you definitely can tell when they’ve exhausted whatever energy they had and are just ready to come home.

That’s exactly what happened Wednesday. I have to give huge credit to Painter for his dazzling performance on the mound, but it’s almost poetry the way Jonathan Bowlan gave up a homer to the first batter he saw in the eighth inning. I wasn’t even mad. I might have even smirked. But this team has shown us a reason to buy back in as the playoffs approach. And it’s not just because they finally won a series in the “House of Horrors” again. The Dbacks are a good team. They have more wins than the feel-good White Sox. They would be leading the AL West.

Bryce Harper is locked in, even with Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Luis Arraez struggling mightily right now. They’re getting clutch hits from role players that they didn’t in previous seasons. People are worried that they’re “peaking too early,” but without this 22-8 run since August 1st, they’d probably be on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.

I’ll take this 10 times out of 10.

The schedule will get tougher this month. They have to continue to hit and pitch to make the postseason. But that series in Arizona confirmed to me what prior series showed me. The Pirates’ series in May. The Nationals’ series in June. The Twins’ series last month. Hell, even Sosa’s grand slam in Anaheim. These are moments that we haven’t seen in years. Granted, the last two years they had the division in pretty comfortable hands so there wasn’t exactly a need for many of those incredible moments. But we’ve gotten a lot this season. It’s starting to feel a little special. I know we have plenty of games left. I don’t want to overstate a series win in early September, but I also don’t think it means nothing.