The Mets rode the ‘wave’ like the 2022 Phillies, leaving this Phillies team looking for answers

NEW YORK — At around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, the Phillies filtered into the visiting clubhouse at Citi Field. It was uncharacteristically quiet. Players sat in their seats, but didn’t speak. Most of them were nursing a beer. Some stared at their lockers. A few stared into space.

They came into this year with the highest expectations — World Series or bust, in the words of their owner — and they fell short. Very short. These 2024 Phillies won the division, but only one playoff game. And on Wednesday, with a 4-1 loss to the Mets, their season came to an unceremonious end in Game 4 of the National League Division Series.

Instead of celebrating a win, they sat under plastic tarp, rolled high above their heads. Instead of blasting a postgame playlist, made specifically for them, they sat in silence. A loss this early didn’t seem possible in May, when they were winning at a 116-win clip, but a lot had changed since then.

The Phillies played .500 baseball through the second half. Their overall chase rate spiked. Their starting pitching began to falter. And nothing changed in the playoffs.

“We knew we weren’t playing our best baseball going into the postseason, but we were hoping that once the lights turned on, we’d turn the switch and our offense would get back going,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto. “It just didn’t happen for us.”

There was a cruel irony to this loss. In many ways, the Mets were playing with the same energy that the Phillies had in 2022. No one expected them to be here, so they had nothing to lose.

The Phillies had everything to lose, and it affected the way they performed. Especially on Wednesday. A team with a payroll just north of $247 million finished with one run on four hits with 11 strikeouts. They knew they were chasing, but kept on doing it.

Their top three hitters, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Bryce Harper, went a combined 1-for-11. In the fourth inning, Turner worked a seven pitch at-bat, and swung at a changeup out of the zone for a leadoff groundout. If he had taken a walk, he could’ve scored two at-bats later, when Nick Castellanos lined a double to left field.

But instead, the Phillies managed one run on a fielders’ choice, and retired in order with two fly-outs. They worked five walks, but weren’t able to get runners home. As a team, they went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

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“I personally think we get ourselves out,” Turner said. “I don’t think it matters who is on the mound. I know I feel that way personally. And I would think a lot of guys in this room feel that way as well. Hitting is very tough, and it’s easy to sit in the dugout and say, ‘Don’t swing at this pitch, or, ‘Do this or do that.’ We say it all the time. It’s so easy from over here, when we’re in the dugout and someone else is hitting, you say it.

“But when you’re in the box and you’re competing, and there’s a guy on the other side throwing 95 miles an hour, and [he’s] got all sorts of things going on, you’ve got to make a decision in how you’re going to compete. And I think we want to compete. I think we have a great lineup and great offensive players, and I think, honestly, we get ourselves out.”

Chasing pitches out of the zone was part of the problem, but it was not the entire problem. The Phillies hit a lot of balls hard right at people. They were on the wrong side of a few calls — like Alec Bohm’s fair-ball-turned-foul-ball call in the top of the eighth — and some poor umpiring behind the plate.

Their bullpen, which had been a strength for most of the season, allowed 16 earned runs over four games. The bullpen is fixable. Chase rate is a bigger challenge. The Phillies are a naturally aggressive team. They hired two coaches last winter to address their free-swinging, and found themselves swinging just as free in October.

“Just give them their credit,” Castellanos said. “They beat us. Are there a lot of things we could’ve done better? Yes. Are there things we could’ve done different? Yes. Do I think that they are a better team than us? No. But this series, they were.”

The unsatisfying reality is that they ran into a hot team at the wrong time; a team that used the exact formula that took the Phillies to the World Series two years ago. They have invested a lot of time and money and energy into getting back to where they were in 2022, but the more they’ve invested, the further they’ve gotten from their goal.

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Maybe it’s the pressure. Maybe not. But this window won’t last forever.

“I think in 2022 we were riding that wave,” Realmuto said. “We were that team. We were the Mets right now. They got hot at the right time, and took their talent, and played free. And I feel like that’s what they did to us this series. And we just weren’t able to [respond].”