Nick Castellanos hits two more homers as Phillies chop down Braves and reach the NLCS again

In a quiet moment before the roaring thunder of Phillies home playoff games, Rob Thomson will sometimes grab the lineup card off his desk, wander into the coaches’ room adjacent to his office, and take a poll.

“We’ll joke around,” the manager said. “Who’s the pick to click?”

Most days across these last two Octobers, there hasn’t been a bad choice. In becoming the best postseason team in the National League, the Phillies are also the deepest. Star turns come from every corner of the roster.

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If the coaching staff played their parlor game Thursday, before Game 4 of the divisional round, Nick Castellanos would have been a popular pick. Trea Turner? Probably not as much, given his hitless history against Atlanta Braves starter Spencer Strider. What about Johan Rojas? Maybe if defense counts.

Yet there they were, hitting and slugging and leaping at the warning track to push the Phillies into the NL Championship Series for the second year in a row. Castellanos became the first player ever with back-to-back two-homer games in the playoffs; Turner solved Strider and finished with four hits, including the go-ahead homer; Rojas made a lead-saving catch.

Add it up, and you got a 3-1 Phillies victory that ran the 104-win Braves out of the playoffs, just like last season — and on the same Citizens Bank Park turf where Atlanta danced and celebrated a division title last month.

Now mark your calendar: The NLCS starts Monday night — in South Philly, no less — against the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks.

“We rely on everyone in this clubhouse, 1 through 25,” said Bryce Harper, bare-chested, drenched in beer, and showing no wear from banging his surgically repaired right elbow against onrushing Matt Olson on a play at first base in the eighth inning. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, how many years you’ve got [in the majors], how many years you don’t have. We do not care. That’s how we are as a team.”

Is there a better symbol of that than Castellanos?

Signed before last season to a five-year, $100 million contract, he was never comfortable in his new surroundings and had the worst season of his career. Philadelphia isn’t for everyone. It certainly didn’t seem to suit Castellanos, a South Floridian whose preference was to sign with his hometown Marlins.

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But instead of chalking up Castellanos as a poor fit and trying to move him last winter, the Phillies figured out ways to put him at ease. One idea: Inviting his 10-year-old son, Liam, into the clubhouse for most of the summer.

Liam returned to Florida last month to start school but has been back in town this week. And with the Phillies trailing 1-0 in the third inning of Game 4, he raced to the front row behind the on-deck circle before his father stepped to the plate, per their season-long custom.

“He just looked at me with an excited face and said, ‘Let’s go!’” Nick Castellanos said.

Sure enough, Castellanos tied the game with a homer to left field on a slider from Braves starter Spencer Strider.

Two innings later, after Turner (0-for-17 against Strider before getting three hits) homered to give the Phillies a 2-1 lead, the Castellanos Boys repeated their ritual. The result: Another homer, this time on a 100 mph fastball. Nick flicked his bat like a toothpick and pointed at Liam, who, mouth agape, put his hands to his head as 45,331 paying customers went ballistic, eventually demanding a curtain call.

As father-son moments go, it was just about perfect.

“It’s cool,” Castellanos said after single-handedly outhomering the Braves, 4-3, in the series even though Atlanta tied a regular-season record with 307 homers. “Baseball is my job, and it takes me away from him more than I would like it to. For him to be able to come and be next to me and be a part of this and witness all of it, I think is good for his maturation. As close as I can keep him to me is always going to make me happier.”

And a happier Castellanos is clearly more productive, with 29 homers and 106 RBIs in the regular season followed by a 7-for-15, four-homer series to slay the Braves.

“He can hit,” said president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who drafted Castellanos in Detroit in 2010. “He always been able to hit. It just took him a little while to get in that comfort zone. I didn’t think the fit was wrong. I just thought he needed to take a step away in the wintertime and come back and regroup, which he did. And his family’s much more comfortable.

Said Turner: “I don’t know if I’ve met anybody like him — and I mean that in a good way. He’s different. And he can really, really hit.”

In watching Castellanos this week, Thomson described him as “very calm” at the plate. He’s also the hottest hitter on the planet — save perhaps Harper, whose two-homer tour de force and stare-down of loose-lipped Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia in Game 3 is the enduring moment of the series.

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Thomson’s management of the bullpen was something to see, too.

In Game 1, with Ranger Suárez starting and knowing runs would come at a premium against Strider, Thomson orchestrated a six-reliever relay from the fourth inning through the end of the game to steal a 3-0 victory and control over the series.

Five nights later, in the Suárez-Strider rematch, Thomson was nearly as aggressive. He let Suárez mow through the Braves’ order twice before springing the bullpen into action in the sixth inning.

And for 12 outs — from Seranthony Domínguez and José Alvarado, to Craig Kimbrel and Gregory Soto, and finally to Matt Strahm — the Phillies squeezed the life out of the Braves.

Oh, but first, Rojas saved the day.

Kimbrel inherited a two-on, two-out jam from Alvarado in the seventh inning and walked pinch-hitting Travis d’Arnaud to load the bases for Ronald Acuña Jr., the NL MVP front-runner and the player whom Rojas said he most admires.

Acuña fouled off two pitches with two strikes before hitting a line drive to left-center field. Expected batting average on the ball: .470, according to Statcast. But Rojas leaped by the 409-foot sign where the wall juts out and hauled it in.

“If you want to score on me playing center field,” said the rookie, who was in double A until July, “you’re going to have to hit a homer.”

Said Thomson: “This kid is so poised, so good of an athlete, electric in the outfield. I felt like he was going to catch it. He’s been a huge addition to our ballclub. If he does nothing at the plate, just his defense helps the club.”

Indeed, it scarcely mattered that Rojas was 0-for-14 in the series. Or that Strahm began the season as a starter and closed out two games all year. He struck out Vaughn Grissom on a wicked slider to kick off yet another beer-and-stogies clubhouse party.

“I can’t tell you how many at-bats I had in the front yard against my brother that, 3-2 [count], World Series on the line,” Strahm said. “It’s something you dream of.”

So, maybe Strahm was a pick to click, too?

With the Phillies in the postseason, it’s almost impossible to miss.