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Philadelphia Phillies: The (Almost) Chokers Who Could Be Champions
By Tim Reilly
Published:
The dismal and dreary weather this past weekend seemed to augur a depressing ending to the Phillies’ 2026 season. The impossible now felt inevitable, and a collapse for the ages loomed on the horizon. Just a week prior, the Phillies held a five-game lead for the final playoff seed with eight to play. They jockeyed with the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres for the top wild-card berth. No one was thinking about the Arizona Diamondbacks until the win/loss/win/loss pattern into which the Phillies settled shifted to loss/loss/loss/loss.
As the Phils stumbled, the Snakes surged. They answered Philadelphia’s four-game losing streak with four wins. Suddenly, the five-game cushion shrunk to one, with Arizona holding the tiebreaker.
The cursed 1964 Phillies were invoked. The angst building up over five seasons of frustration prepared to crash into a wave of outrage and disdain for an organization that has fallen short when the lights were brightest.
But then the rain stopped—briefly, anyway—and Zack Wheeler took the mound. He set the tone from the jump, striking out the side to start the game before scattering five hits over six innings and conceding just one run. The dormant offense woke up, and the Phillies cruised to a 7-3 win and punched their postseason ticket.
Never a doubt!
Let’s not allow the mist from the celebratory champagne to obscure what we saw with our own eyes. The Phillies did all they could to choke. On Friday, they wasted a stellar outing from Cristopher Sánchez, who gave up two runs over seven innings, and got shut out for the twelfth time this year. On Saturday, facing the prospect of a must-win game against the best team in the American League, the Phillies desperately turned to Aaron Nola on two-days’ rest. He was promptly shelled, and the terrible bullpen vied with the offense to see which unit could be more disappointing. They both won, and the Phillies lost again.
However, out on the West Coast, the Diamondbacks’ magic was finally running out. Despite a ferocious ninth-inning rally, the Padres held off Arizona by a score of 10-7, delivering a reprieve in Philadelphia. Without San Diego’s help and Wheeler’s heroics, the Phillies are cleaning out their lockers today.
Perhaps it will be a brief stay of execution. The Phillies head to Georgia for a three-game series versus a Braves team they have struggled to solve. They have not beaten staff ace Chris Sale since he arrived in Atlanta, and they didn’t do much against presumptive Game 2 starter Tyler Mahle in two September matchups.
The starting pitchers are the strength of the Phillies, but they bungled their October advantage by dithering in September. With Wheeler unavailable for Games 1 and 2, the club will turn to Jesús Luzardo to open Game 1, with Sanchez in line to start Game 2. Wheeler could return for a possible Game 3, but he would be pitching on short rest. That’s a difficult proposition given Wheeler’s age and his recent injury history.
Luzardo is an outstanding option to start the series, but he is coming back from a stint on the IL and was pressed into service on Sunday because there seems to be no one in the bullpen outside of Jhoan Durán whom manager Don Mattingly can trust to pitch a clean inning. I doubt Luzardo’s warm-up tosses and the four pitches he threw in live action taxed him too much, but I also would not be surprised if he’s only around for 4-5 innings. And then what?
Who would you trust to emerge from the bullpen in the sixth inning of a close game? How about the seventh and eighth? Rookies Andrew Painter and Alex McFarlane are probably your answers, which is another indictment of the relief unit and the front office that constructed it.
Who is your lefthanded reliever you’re calling on to get out Matt Olson in a big spot? Is it Brooks Raley, the guy who pitches once a week, and does it poorly? Can you actually trust José Alvarado after the bad year he’s had? It could be Tim Mayza by default. How about your righthanded options? Painter and McFarlane have electric stuff, but they’re also rookies dealing with the dual pressure of the playoffs and high-leverage situations for the first time. Jonathan Bowlan has scuffled down the stretch and left his last outing with a groin injury.
Getting the ball to Duran will be a major challenge, but none of it will matter if the Phillies continue their offensive woes. Notwithstanding Sunday’s result, the plate discipline of this team is horrendous. It’s been an issue for five seasons now, outside of this past August when the Phillies coincidentally played their best baseball. Is this lineup capable of not chasing pitches outside the strike zone, of working counts, of getting runners on base and advancing them? Of not initiating stupid challenges in the first inning and not taking selfish at-bats? Of stealing bases, executing bunts, hitting the ball the other way, not striking out, and not relying on a timely Kyle Schwarber home run to provide all of the offense?
In this era where many teams are firmly entrenched in the mindset of “swing your hardest and throw your hardest,” I’m not sure the fundamentals of the game are valued so prominently. Nonetheless, organizations like the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays have thrived taking an old-school approach. It can work, and it has worked for the Phillies when they have tried it.
As I mentioned back in February, I hope, but I’m not hopeful. I would love nothing more than for the Phillies to silence the skepticism and go on a run for the ages in October. They have the talent to do it. I’m not sure they have the fortitude.
When the pressure mounts, this team folds way more often than it should. I have zero expectations that they will defy the precedent they have set since 2021.
And yet, it’s never too late for the Phillies to rewrite their own story. I look forward to reading it.
Tim Reilly is a freelance writer from Northeast Philadelphia. He can be reached at reillyt7@gmail.com.