Citizens Bank Park, the home of the Phillies, has a lot to offer, like an afternoon full of food, fun, and family bonding, but the players did not offer the same enjoyment this season.
The Phillies were fighting to fill a few thousand seats. Now, playoff tickets are being distributed via a lottery while the Phillies still sell out of tickets for nearly every home game. The excitement surrounding baseball in Philadelphia had been growing for over three years, but the fuse finally blew. This Phillies team is not as invincible as we all assumed.
After a regular season that resulted in 95 wins and their first National League East Title since 2011, expectations were higher than ever when Red October struck. The Phillies had talent, health and the highly-anticipated “bye” that gave them a week to prepare for the New York Mets in the National League Division series.
Ironically, the Phillies did not have a slow start to the series. In game one, Phillies’ ace Zack Wheeler spun a near-perfect top of the first inning, and Phils’ leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber launched the third he saw into the second deck of the right field stands, gifting the Phillies an early lead.
From there, however, the ship began to sink. The Phillies blew their lead in the eighth inning of game one, and–despite nabbing a game-two victory–lost both games in New York, ending their season in an unexpectedly tragic fashion.
“It was just an all-around bad series,” junior Ayden Chan said. “The bullpen struggled so badly… It was nothing like the team we saw in the regular season.”
Although their atrocious bullpen stood out the most, the Phillies were plagued with a plethora of problems during their short playoff stint. Brandon Marsh and J.T. Realmuto struggled mightily at the plate, and Ranger Suarez was unable to complete five full innings in game four. After some questionable coaching choices, many also think the blame does not rest fully on the players.
“[Hitting coach] Kevin Long had the players keep the same approach for the entire series. It clearly was not working,” Chan said. “They need someone who will step up and so something when the team is down.”
Others, even, remain dissatisfied with MLB’s new postseason format, which was first introduced in 2022.
“They lost all their momentum,” junior Jathan Sampat said. “The Mets kept playing, but the Phillies had a one-week gap between their last regular season game and their first postseason game. It just killed them.”
So, what’s the biggest takeaway from a series as disappointing as this one?
Sampat says, “The regular season really does not mean that much. Everything resets, and in a series that is so short, anything can happen.”
