What if the Phillies don’t make the playoffs? The fallout could be considerable.

WASHINGTON — In the end, maybe none of this will matter.

Maybe the Phillies will pull themselves together over these last five games and lay claim to the final National League wild card. Maybe Zack Wheeler will be on the mound in St. Louis next Friday, which happens to be the 11th anniversary of the Phillies’ last playoff game. And maybe the recent spate of “embarrassing” play, to use Jean Segura’s word, will be a footnote in the story of the season.

For now, though, all we’ve got to go on is this:

♦ Two extra-base hits and a total of three runs in three games this week in Chicago, part of a five-game losing streak and a stretch of 10 losses in 13 games.

♦ A 13-4 throttling Saturday by the 102-loss Nationals in which backup infielder Nick Maton had to record the final out of the eighth inning.

♦ Playoff odds that went from 96.3% on Sept. 14, according to Fangraphs, to 57.7% entering the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader.

So, yes, it appears the Phillies are in deep, deep trouble.

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And before you cite the last four Septembers, yawn, and chalk this up to the Phillies being the Phillies, know this: Missing the playoffs would be the franchise’s biggest flop in, oh, about 58 years.

Because the Phillies led the Milwaukee Brewers by 4½ games with 20 to play. Not quite a 6½-game lead with 12 left, but enough to scar this generation of fans as much as the collapse to end all Phillies collapses did in 1964.

What if it ends the same way? What if the Phillies are postseason outsiders again, for an 11th year in a row? There will be ramifications. There are always ramifications.

The players and interim manager Rob Thomson are doing what they must to wall off the clubhouse from the pessimism. It can’t be easy. Not with the Phillies’ recent pathology.

Last season, they lost six of their last seven games (and 14 of 23). In 2020, they dropped seven of their last eight (and 15 of 22). In 2019, it was nine losses in the last 12 games (and 18 of 27). In 2018, they lost nine of the final 11 (and 20 of 28).

Each time, a playoff spot was within their reach. Each time, they were unable to grab it.

“I don’t think any guy on this team has that mindset of, ‘Oh, here we go again,’” Bryce Harper said after Thursday’s game. “Different group of guys. Different team.”

Maybe. But what if they’re not?

After the Phillies melted like ice cream in 2018, ownership spent half a billion dollars on free agents, including Harper. A year later, manager Gabe Kapler took the fall. In 2020, the Phillies made changes to the front office, demoting general manager Matt Klentak and bringing on Dave Dombrowski. After last season, owner John Middleton agreed for the first time in club history to push the payroll over a heightened $230 million luxury-tax bar.

Given the way the Phillies have played, it’s difficult not to wonder what the fallout would look like this time. There’s a lot at stake.

For 11 days after the 2019 season crashed and burned, Middleton, a former college wrestler, grappled with Kapler’s fate.

“Those September collapses,” Middleton said then, “I kept bumping up against them.”

But they kept happening under Joe Girardi, which should have informed Middleton that the problem extends beyond the manager’s office.

It was a 22-29 record through June 2 that got Girardi fired and gave Thomson, a longtime coach, his overdue first chance to manage in the majors. Middleton trusted Dombrowski with that decision, and Thomson’s future likely will be determined by Dombrowski, too.

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The players responded to Thomson’s low-key personality and calm demeanor. His batting orders rarely change. Neither does his positive outlook. The Phillies won 24 of his first 34 games at the helm. If they make the playoffs, Thomson would be the first manager since Jim Tracy with the 2009 Colorado Rockies to engineer a turnaround that leads to the postseason.

Thomson is respected throughout the organization. But if the Phillies fall short, Dombrowski may decide that bringing him back is a tough sell.

(Worth noting: Middleton, according to sources, is pleased with the work of the coaching staff, from Thomson through hitting coach Kevin Long, infield coach Bobby Dickerson, and others.)

It’s absurd to think of the range of outcomes for Thomson, who could be a Manager of the Year finalist or out of a job. But regardless of what Dombrowski and Middleton decide, it’s clear that the common denominator in the Phillies’ late-season swoons is hardly the manager.

Harper is nearing the end of his fourth season with the Phillies. For most of that time, the roster has been top-heavy with stars but lacking a suitable foundation. Without a well of organizational depth, the roster has tended to cave in on itself.

But the Phillies are in playoff position in large part because of unexpected contributions. Darick Hall stepped in after Harper broke his thumb in June; Bailey Falter filled in recently when Wheeler missed five starts with a cranky elbow; Nick Maton, Edmundo Sosa, Garrett Stubbs, Dalton Guthrie, Andrew Bellatti, and Nick Nelson have been worth more than replacement-level players at their position, according to Fangraphs.

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It’s a testament to Dombrowski’s front office, which has improved the edges of the roster. There’s more work to be done. The Phillies still don’t go as deep as the elite teams in the National League, notably the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves. But it’s better.

Now is the time, though, for the stars to put the Phillies over the top. And in the three games against the Cubs and the first two against the Nationals, Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, and Rhys Hoskins combined to go 24-for-94 (.255) with five extra-base hits.

That’s not enough.

“Dombrowski put this team together to win games and to get into the playoffs. We need to do that,” Harper said. “Middleton’s done his job to put the best team on the field that he can. We need to show up and do our job.”

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If they fall short again, it raises the question: Do the Phillies have the right mix of stars?

Some rival evaluators were unsure how the pieces would fit after the Phillies signed Schwarber and Castellanos, both of whom are more suited to being designated hitters. But the Phillies have $88.5 million, as calculated for luxury-tax purposes, committed to Harper, Realmuto, Castellanos, and Schwarber next season.

With the emergence of several low-salaried regulars (Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, Brandon Marsh), top prospect Andrew Painter on a fast track to the majors, and Kyle Gibson, Corey Knebel, Brad Hand, David Robertson, Didi Gregorius, and likely Segura rolling off the books, the Phillies could take a run at another high-priced free agent. Another star-studded shortstop class may include Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson, Carlos Correa, and Xander Bogaerts.

But after missing the playoffs despite a club-record payroll, would ownership be less inclined to keep throwing money at the roster?

At the news conference after the Phillies signed Schwarber, Dombrowski noted the slugger’s value as more than a home-run hitter. Specifically, Schwarber went to the postseason six times in seven years and won the World Series with the hex-busting 2016 Chicago Cubs.

The Phillies didn’t have enough players who experienced winning.

They still don’t.

“You look in the field and you just say there’s something that’s not there,” Dombrowski said in April about the previous September swoons and his perception that something intangible was missing from the clubhouse. “You just think you need a change.”

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That’s what tends to happen when a rebuilding team puts a cart filled with cash for free agents before the twin horses of drafting and player development. The result is not an also-ran but not quite a true contender, and a hard-to-identify organizational culture.

Everything would have to be on the table with another postseason miss. Could the Phillies excise Hoskins and Aaron Nola, homegrown stars who are under contract only through next season and, fairly or not, are often associated with the playoff drought?

One thing is clear: If champagne doesn’t pop this week, more changes are on the way.