From the bullpen to the bats, NLCS Game 4 was the night the Phillies became a World Series team

Distance is the characteristic that best defines life as a major league reliever. You sit on the outskirts of a stadium full of workaday folks who are closer to the action than you are, and, yet, you sit closer than anybody to having the whole building’s fate on your shoulders. That is your job. You sit, and you wait, and you watch and you hear and you feel everything unfold a split second later than everybody else who is wearing your uniform. The crack of the bat, the trajectory of the ball, the roar of the crowd, the moment of realization that comes with various combinations of the three: they arrive like a ripple. And then you hear the ring of the phone and you see the affirmative nod and you once again become the last one to know. It is now your time.

On Saturday night, as the madhouse of Game 4 roared around the rectangular patch of grass that had become his new home, Zach Eflin slowly arrived at the realization that it would end up with him. He’d spent most of the evening like any of the other 45,000-plus spectators who’d crammed themselves into Citizens Bank Park. A spectacle was unfolding on the other side of that center-field fence, and he and the rest of the Phillies’ bullpen were equal parts alert and enthralled. They’d entered the night knowing that anybody who could go would likely need to. Four batters into the game, the process of elimination began.

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“Everybody’s gotta be ready,” Eflin said after recording the final three outs of a hectic 10-6 victory that left the Phillies one win away from the World Series. “Especially on a day like today. We know everybody’s gotta be on standby. We were fully prepared for anything that happened during the game.”

What happened was one of those October nights that you wanted to end only because it needed to be made official. If this Phillies season ends the way it sometimes feels destined to, we may well look back on Game 4 of the National League Championship Series as the moment they completed their self-actualization. After a string of victories cobbled together on the backs of singular moments and electric starting pitching, the Phillies put together a collective performance that established once and for all their superiority as a team. Fresh off a Game 3 victory that had exhausted their last stretched-out starter and their two bullpen aces, they entered Game 4 knowing they would need a new formula. They had one path to victory. And, by God, did they blaze it.

You will hear a lot about the bats, and deservedly so. Kyle Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos — this was their night, the exact sort of thing their bosses had envisioned when they added its two finishing touches this offseason. They’d each had their individual moments in the Phillies’ first seven postseason wins, but this was a game where they needed to put all of those moments together. That is exactly what they did, and they did it from the moment they found themselves down 4-0. The pivotal blow: a two-run home run in the bottom of the first that reignited a crowd that barely had time to digest the deficit’s implications.

Yet, there were plenty of moments when it could have amounted to nothing. It was in these moments where the second cavalry brigade thrived. One by one, they charged in from center field, the phone ringing, the manager gesturing, the gate swinging open, the music beginning to play. For several of them, it would be their most meaningful opportunity to make an impact on a magical run that they’d spent watching from a distance.

Two weeks ago, Connor Brogdon made his first postseason appearance and allowed four of the five batters he faced to reach base. From that point on, he was seemingly marked for games already lost or already won. In Game 4, though, he suddenly was on the mound in the first inning, summoned to stop the bleeding and then to preserve a deficit the bats had trimmed from three to one. This time, he retired six of seven. As he walked off the mound, you got the sense that something big had happened.

“In my opinion, those were the most important outs of the game,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said.

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Next up was Andrew Bellati, who struck out two of the three batters he faced in a perfect fourth. The only hiccup came in the fifth as Brad Hand allowed a two-run home run to Juan Soto. But after the Phillies mashed back with a four-run bottom of the fifth, their fate fell to a trio of veterans who have spent much of the series biding their time. Noah Syndergaard got the first four outs, David Robertson the next five.

“Next man up,” said Robertson, who struck out three in the seventh and eighth innings. “Whoever got the ball went out there and did their best and passed it to the next guy.”

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That’s what they did, recording 25 of the game’s final 27 outs after Bailey Falter walked off the mound int he first inning. By the time the ninth inning arrived, Eflin was well aware of the task that would be his. Jose Alvarado and Seranthony Domínguez had both thrown 27-plus pitches the night before. Eflin had only thrown 17. Apart from starter Kyle Gibson, he was the only one who remained.

“Everybody was ready to go today,” Eflin said. “Even if you ask those guys, they were ready to go.”

Individuals can win games, but it eventually takes a team to win a series. This may have been the night when the Phillies officially became one.