Nick Castellanos and the Phillies get revenge, shake off ‘punch in the face’ to finish the Braves in the NLDS

The Phillies clubhouse was quiet. Ashamed quiet. Angry quiet. Dangerously quiet.

They’d taken quite a punch, and they were hurting.

Trea Turner made two errors in Game 2 of the NL Division Series. Bryce Harper made a baserunning mistake that ended the game. Canny manager Rob Thomson, who’d dominated Braves skipper Brian Snitker, sent ace Zack Wheeler — exhausted after six innings — back out for the seventh, where Wheeler collapsed. The bullpen couldn’t save it. A 4-1 lead turned into a 5-4 loss, and the best-of-five series with the Braves was tied.

The Braves rejoiced on the field like they’d won the series, not just one game.

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Nick Castellanos, the Phillies’ only All-Star regular, didn’t like that. Afterward, he put on a brave, bruised face.

“We thrive after we get punched in the face, man. You know?” Castellanos said in that quiet clubhouse. “So, that’s all it is. Good. It stings, and we’ll take it and make it motivate us.”

The clubhouse was rocking again on Thursday night after a 3-1 win sent them back to the NL Championship Series. They’ll host the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night.

Do they feel better?

“I feel like our play answered that question,” Castellanos said.

It was he who hit the drive that Michael Harris II caught, then threw into the infield and completed a double play of Harper, who had run too far past second base to make it back to first in time. So Castellanos was on the field as the Braves erupted into celebration.

He channeled his rage into four home runs in the next two days.

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“Watching when they celebrated, when they doubled off Harper — seeing everybody jump around, when they danced on the field as I was coming off — that was a good feeling to get coming back and playing baseball here,” he said.

Castellanos hit two homers Thursday, and Turner hit another, all solo shots, all off wise guy Spencer Strider, who, in a farcical interview, advocated for empty stadiums like they had during the season of COVID-19, in 2020. The 45,831 at Citizens Bank Park repeatedly chanted, “Striiii-der!” until he left after 5⅔ innings.

An hour later, they had other things to chant, and cheer, and sing. For the fourth time in a calendar year, the clubhouse anthem, “Dancing on My Own” rang out at the Bank.

They were feeling no pain.

Neither were the Phillies — not anymore. They were going back to the NLCS for the second straight year, the first time that’s happened since they went to three straight from 2008-10.

The Braves didn’t punch the Phils in the face in Game 2 as much as they punched themselves.

As if the loss wasn’t motivation enough, while Castellanos spoke in his quiet clubhouse after Game 2, on the other side of the ballpark, in a raucous Braves dressing room, shortstop Orlando Arcia mocked the Phillies’ superstar for ending the game with his Little League miscue: “Attaboy, Harper!”

Motivation achieved. And brother, did they thrive.

Castellanos hit two homers in Game 3 on Wednesday, a 10-2 win, but he was overshadowed by Harper’s two-homer, “attaboy” revenge game; Harper’s homers traveled more than 800 feet, and he stared down Arcia on both trots. No problem.

Castellanos hit two more homers in Game 4 on Thursday. Turner homered in each game. In the last three games he was 7-for-13.

He led the threesome.

After that Game 2 gut-punch, Harper, Turner, and Castellanos homered a combined eight times and reached base in 18 of 26 plate appearances. Castellanos celebrated with his teammates and his 10-year-old son Liam, who’s been in town for the playoffs.

“Trea and Harp and Nick, I mean I can’t tell you how big they are on our club right now. I don’t think the moment gets them at all. In fact, the moment, I think, helps Harp a little bit,” Thomson said. “But Trea has been unbelievable. That home run he hit today was huge. Nick’s two home runs were huge. Harp’s two home runs yesterday were huge. Those guys just — they step up.”

The Braves motivated them.

Both Harper and Castellanos wore Colorado football gear to Game 3, a clear reference to Buffs coach Deion Sanders’ response to critics when he said, “They done messed around and made it personal.”

The hitting was timely. The pitching was amazing.

Homegrown workhorse Aaron Nola cruised through Game 3. Ranger Suárez, supplied five innings Thursday, gave up one run, and left it to the bullpen. Seranthony Domínguez, José Alvarado, Craig Kimbrel, and Gregory Soto each allowed at least one base runner in the next four innings. Johan Rojas saved Kimbrel’s bacon with a leaping catch at the wall to leave the bases loaded in the seventh, and Matt Strahm stranded Soto’s two leadoff runners in the ninth with two fly outs and a checked-swing strikeout.

Phillies pitchers allowed the best offense since the 1975 Big Red Machine eight runs in four games. They shut them out in Game 1, gave up two in Game 3, and gave up one in Game 4.

Eight runs, total. Two runs per game. The Braves averaged 5.78 runs this season, and Snitker has no idea, exactly, what happened.

“I mean, the Phillies stifled us. I mean, they pitched really well. They had great plans,” Snitker said. “Oh, my God. We got beat.”

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They won 104 games in the regular season. They won one in the playoffs, same as last year, against the same team, in the same round.

They ended their season on the same field.

Now that’s a punch in the face.