Phillies playoffs: How I was wrong about this team — and you probably were, too

Before the 2022 season, when looking at the Phillies, the calculus was simple. They share a division with a Mets club that overspent and a Braves club defending its World Series title, so a number of things obviously had to go right for the Phillies to reach the postseason in 2022. They simply had to. Right?

No.

This is a list of all the things I got wrong about the playoff-bound Phillies this season while either writing a column, hosting a radio show, calling into someone else’s radio or TV show, or firing off some dumb tweet.

And, if you’re honest, you probably got them wrong, too.

» READ MORE: Phillies president Dave Dombrowski: The human behind the title

In theory, yes. But Joe Girardi never quite knew when to apply the lash. Bryce Harper got away with murder on the basepaths and the sequence of J.T. Realmuto’s pitch-calling, at times, defied logic. But Girardi saved his ire for lesser targets, usually young players with little power. Girardi also was dogmatic in his bullpen usage and hated using young players, and so, on June 3, he was dismissed, with his riding crop and his veteran bias.

Bench coach Rob Thomson, a mild-mannered Canadian, calmed the storm, soothed the troops, rode the ‘pen, played the kids, and won 65 out of the next 111 games to end an 11-year playoff drought.

Kyle Schwarber actually hit .218. And he was probably the team MVP.

Incredible.

But he led the National League with 46 home runs, the most for a Phillie In 14 years, since Ryan Howard hit 48 in 2008 and the club won the World Series. Ooh, baby.

Every one of Schwarber’s homers seemed huge — probably because they accounted for almost 37% of his 126 hits. That pushed him to seventh in the NL with a .506 slugging percentage. He essentially won the clincher Monday in Houston single-handedly, with two home runs. Aaron Nola pitched more than six perfect innings and shut out the best team in baseball for 6⅔, but even perfect outings need run support.

Schwarber ended the season as he began it. He hit a leadoff homer in the season opener, and he hit a first-pitch leadoff homer Monday. He led off seven games with home runs this season and now has 20 such homers.

Analytics, I guess.

Go figure.

The veteran closer, Corey Knebel, and the setup man, Jeurys Familia, cost a combined $16 million, stunk, and haven’t pitched for the Phillies since mid-August; the Phillies released Familia and Knebel wound up hurt.

Seranthony Domínguez, who had pitched in just 81 games before 2022, looks like the closer of the future, José Alvarado was sent to the minors for a reset, David Robertson returned and redeemed himself, and Zach Eflin, injured (again) at midseason and penned upon his return, has finally found a home there.

With Eflin sidelined, the deadline trade for Angels starter Noah Syndergaard seemed almost fatalistic at the time; he was not the stud he’d been with the Mets.

But Thor brought thunder, if diminished: 5-2 in 10 games, with a 4.12 ERA. More to the point, the former Mets star contributed four starts of at least six innings with three earned runs or fewer, not including 5⅔ shutout innings in a win Saturday in Washington. He also dealt two shutout innings in relief in a win over the Blue Jays on Sept. 21.

As autumn nears, Aaron Nola falls to earth like the leaves from the trees. It seemed obvious and inevitable after his eight-run outing over four innings Aug. 30 in Arizona. He had a 4.60 ERA in the months of September and October and surrendered 32 home runs over his eight previous seasons.

Since that Aug. 30 game, Nola has since produced a 2.36 ERA over six starts, four of which the Phillies won. He gave up one or zero runs four times, including those 6⅔ shutout innings in the clincher Monday. He gave up two homers.

No one has been more critical of Nola’s inconsistency than I have.

So, since he’s far too nice a guy to say it:

Up yours, Hayes.

» READ MORE: Aaron Nola’s meltdown cost the Phillies in Arizona. But we’ve been here before.

Bryce Harper campaigned in 2020 for the Phillies to re-sign catcher J.T. Realmuto, his good friend, and, in January, Harper got his way: a five-year, $115.5 million deal, the biggest average annual salary for a catcher in major league history.

Realmuto responded in 2021 with his lowest OPS in five seasons, .782, and wasn’t quite as sharp defensively. He rolled that into a horrid start for 2022, when he was at .680 through July 10.

Since then, Realmuto has become an MVP candidate, hitting .320 with 15 homers, 49 RBIs, and a .984 OPS in 63 games. He finished at .276 with 22 homers, 84 RBIs, and an .820 OPS, and had reclaimed the title of best catcher in baseball.