Ranking the top 10 Phillies non-World Series playoff moments

Any list involving the most important moments in Phillies history logically would be dominated by World Series memories. Things like Chase Utley’s deke of Jason Bartlett in 2008 or Pete Rose bailing out Bob Boone on a ninth-inning foul ball in 1980 or even (gasp) Mitch Williams giving up a home run for the ages in 1993.

But as the Phillies start their 2023 playoff run, let’s take the World Series out of the picture for a minute. Here are 10 unforgettable postseason moments in the preliminary rounds.

Lenny Dykstra’s 10th-inning homer bailed out a couple of teammates and put the Phillies one win away from an unlikely appearance in the World Series. Mitch Williams, brought in to relieve Curt Schilling with two on and none out, gave up three hits as the Braves scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to send the game into extra innings. Kim Batiste also committed a costly error in the inning.

Nevertheless, Dykstra single-handedly returned momentum by hitting his second homer of the series off Braves closer Mark Wohlers.

”We felt it still was our game when Mitch got out of it in the ninth,” Dykstra said. “But I knew we had to do something that next inning. It was definitely slipping [away].”

Larry Andersen, who did not have a save during the regular season, closed it with a 1-2-3 10th inning. The Phillies, who finished in last place the year before, were up 3-2 against the two-time defending National League champion Braves. They won the series two days later at Veterans Stadium.

Jimmy Rollins split the right-center field gap in the bottom of the ninth against the Dodgers to score two runs and put the Phillies on the verge of winning the National League pennant for the second consecutive season — something they’d never done before.

Rollins is the Phillies’ all-time leader with 47 postseason hits (tied with Shane Victorino). This was his biggest.

Starting pitcher Brett Myers, who hit .069 during the season, worked a 10-pitch walk off Brewers ace CC Sabathia and Victorino hit the first (and only) grand slam in Phillies playoff history as they grabbed a commanding 2-0 lead against Milwaukee in the NLDS.

The scene of Sabathia getting pulled from the game in the fourth inning — after 98 pitches! — was bedlam.

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“They chanted ‘CC, CC.’ They stood and yelped wildly on many of the 55 balls he threw,” columnist Frank Fitzpatrick wrote. “And after interim manager Dale Sveum mercifully yanked him, with Ryan Howard coming up and the bases loaded in the fourth, they erupted into a frenzy of derisive towel-waving.”

Roy Halladay waited 13 years to make it to the postseason. He needed about 2½ hours to make history.

Halladay threw a no-hitter against the Reds, punctuated by Carlos Ruiz’s acrobatic play to throw out Brandon Phillips on a slow roller in front of the plate for the game’s final out.

“Halladay threw it last night: not just a no-hitter, not just a no-hitter in a postseason game, but a no-hitter in a postseason game for which he had waited an entire career,” Phillies beat writer David Murphy wrote that night.

A walk to Jay Bruce in the fifth inning prevented Halladay from tossing a perfect game.

Murphy continued: “In a 4-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, the veteran right-hander exorcized the [12] years of frustration that accompany life in a baseball outpost like Toronto.”

A chance for the Phils to take the series lead disintegrated through a comedy of errors by players, umpires and even the manager.

The Phillies scored three runs in the second when Dodgers pitcher Burt Hooton unraveled with three consecutive bases-loaded walks. The atmosphere at Veterans Stadium was electric. The Phillies franchise had been around for 84 years and had never won a playoff series; never even led one. Before 1977, the Phillies hadn’t won a postseason game since 1915. The fans smelled blood.

But by the end of the afternoon, blame went to manager Danny Ozark, who declined to substitute Jerry Martin for Greg Luzinski in left field. The Phillies led, 5-3, going into the ninth, but Luzinski misplayed a drive to the wall by Manny Mota, and then made things worse with an errant throw. The Dodgers tied the score when Davey Lopes was ruled safe on a bang-bang infield single on a ball that caromed off Mike Schmidt. Lopes came around to score the winning run after Gene Garber’s wild pickoff throw and Bill Russell’s RBI single. All that was missing in that inning was the circus music.

“He was the third batter up, in the bottom of the ninth,” said Ozark, explaining his decision to keep Luzinski in the game. “I wanted him in the lineup in case the game was tied.”

Except it wasn’t tied. The Dodgers led, 6-5. Luzinski came to the plate with two outs and nobody on. He was hit by a pitch and replaced by a pinch-runner: Jerry Martin. Richie Hebner then grounded out harmlessly to end the game

The Dodgers won the series the next day when Tommy John, who was a very good pitcher before becoming the namesake for a popular elbow surgery, outdueled Steve Carlton in a driving rain.

The Phillies scored four runs in the eighth inning to turn a 5-3 deficit into a 7-5 lead and eventual victory over the Dodgers.

Victorino hit a two-run homer to tie it, and 40-year-old pinch-hitter Matt Stairs hit a bomb to right field as the Phillies, 0-5 at Dodger Stadium that season until that game, grabbed a 3-1 series lead. They clinched the pennant two days later.

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Philadelphia was the 11th franchise Stairs played for, and he had never won a playoff series. He had only four at-bats during the 2008 postseason. Only had one hit, too. But boy, was it memorable.

“You want to get that one big hit where you feel like you’re part of the team,” Stairs said that night in L.A. “Not that I don’t feel like I’m part of the team, by no means, but when you get that nice celebration coming into the dugout and you’re getting [mobbed] by guys, it’s no better feeling than to have that done.”

The Phillies were down 2-1 in the series against Houston and staring at another quick exit from the postseason. They signed Pete Rose in 1979 specifically so this wouldn’t happen.

This was one of the wackiest games in club history. Among the notable moments was an Astros triple play that was overturned after a 20-minute conversation that included the umpires and National League president Chub Feeney. Both teams played the game under protest.

There were five double plays, four of which involved outfielders. The Phillies took the lead in the eighth. Gave it away in the ninth. Won it back in the 10th. Rose scored the game-winning run by barreling over Astros catcher Bruce Bochy to keep the season alive.

Closer Tug McGraw, who pitched a 1-2-3 final inning for the save, said the game was “like a motorcycle ride through an art museum. You see the pictures, but afterward you don’t remember what you saw.”

Rhys Hoskins, mired in a 1-for-19 playoff slump and struggling defensively, drilled a three-run homer and immediately slammed his bat in exaltation as the Phillies whipped up on the Braves, 9-1.

“Guy’s been here since the beginning of his career,” backup catcher Garrett Stubbs said of Hoskins, a fifth-round pick of the Phillies in 2014. “To be in his first postseason and go hit a homer like that — at home for the first [game] in however many years — oof. It’s frickin’ awesome.”

The Phillies, who finished 14 games back of the Braves in the NL East and were the last team to qualify for the playoffs, closed out the series the following day.

It was late, and the Phillies were really hoping to avoid a trip back across the country to San Diego. Morale throughout Citizens Bank Park was sagging after the bullpen gave the lead back to the Padres; Seranthony Domínguez threw three wild pitches in the seventh inning alone.

But then the savior came to bat in the bottom of the eighth and delivered the most clutch home run in club history. One that would send them to the World Series.

Bryce Harper, in his first postseason run with the Phillies, drilled Robert Suarez’s seventh pitch into the left-center field seats to give them yet another comeback win.

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“You can’t write that,” starting pitcher Zack Wheeler said. “He’s a showman. That’s Harp. He just has that in him where he just steps up in big moments. I don’t know. He’s always been a dude.”

Padres fans will forever criticize manager Bob Melvin for leaving in the right-handed Suarez rather than go to left-handed closer Josh Hader to face the lefty Harper. Melvin said Hader wasn’t ready. Not ready? Facing elimination and the closer wasn’t ready to face Harper?

But that’s San Diego’s problem.

“When the moment hits, he doesn’t get caught up in it. He can relax and he goes and does his job,” manager Rob Thomson said. “I saw a lot of years of [Derek] Jeter doing the same thing. Their heart doesn’t speed up as much as the guy that’s throwing to them.”

Four of the five games in the 1980 National League Championship Series went into extra innings, including the finale, when the Phillies overcame a 5-2 deficit in the eighth inning against future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.

But the Astros scored twice in the bottom of the inning to tie it. This wasn’t a baseball series. It was a heavyweight fight. In the end, the Phillies delivered the last punch when Garry Maddox doubled in the game-winner in the top of the 10th.

It was redemption for Maddox, probably the best defensive center fielder in team history. He dropped a routine fly ball in an NLCS loss two years earlier to the Dodgers. He caught the final out of the 1980 NLCS and celebrated wildly as his teammates gave him the ultimate show of respect by carrying him off the field.

“All the disappointments, all the frustrations I felt [in the past] are washed away,” Maddox said. “I can’t tell you how it felt to have those guys pick me up and carry me off the field. I didn’t know they were going to do that. … When I realized, I thought, ‘This must be a dream. This all has to be a dream.’”

Every Phillies fan felt the same way two weeks later when the club, founded 97 years earlier, finally won its first World Series.