There was a moment when Sunday’s win felt like a turning point for the Phillies — the Brandon Marsh no-look catch, Bryce Harper slump-buster and Zack Wheeler skid-stopper of it all feeling like a breakthrough.
Then the next series started and a larger trend resumed, the Phillies dropping the opener in Los Angeles. That’s been a common theme for the Phillies as of late. Their 5-3 loss to the Dodgers was their seventh consecutive series-opening loss, powering (or something) their series-loss streak that’ll reach the same number if they can’t take the next two in Los Angeles.
Of all the issues plaguing the Phillies since their last series against the Dodgers — a sweep in early July — the Game 1 woes, along with the bullpen, have seemed most uncharacteristic. They lost as many series openers in their first 30 series as they have in their last seven, going 23-7 in Game 1s until their current slide. (For what it’s worth, they’ve even gone 7-0 in postseason Game 1s since the end of the playoff drought two years ago.)
They’ve done it in all types of ways, too, blown leads and blowouts alike.
In half of the team’s six straight series losses, they’ve followed up that Game 1 defeat with a win in Game 2, which is what they’ll need to do on Tuesday lest they cede the National League’s best record to the Dodgers. Their division lead still sits at 5 1/2 games (because the Braves have themselves lost nine of 22) but 5 1/2 isn’t the important number right now. That would be 3 1/2, which is the Phillies’ lead on Milwaukee for a top-two seed and a bye in the National League Division Series.
There exists a completely plausible world in which the Phillies win the NL East but still have to play a best-of-three Wild Card Series, only to go on the road to start the NLDS instead of kicking off the postseason at Citizens Bank Park. 2022 and 2023 happened the same way, and each time, the Phillies found their way to the NLCS, but that’s not the type of history whose repetition they’d like to test.
All that to say — perhaps it’s time for a little urgency. One opportunity to show it came in the ninth inning on Monday, when Garrett Stubbs came to the plate with two outs, representing the tying run. “You think about it,” manager Rob Thomson told reporters, including The Athletic’s Matt Gelb, after the loss about pinch-hitting J.T. Realmuto. “But I still want to keep him healthy and give him a day.”
There are two ways a substitution could’ve played out. One, the likeliest: Realmuto (admittedly not the hottest hitter on the planet), or someone shortly after him, makes an out and the Phillies lose without their three-time All-Star having to catch. Two: Realmuto helps the Phillies tie it up and does need to catch a couple innings — a give-and-take Thomson should probably welcome, given the Phillies’ slide and the importance of these three games against one of the clubs competing with them for postseason positioning.
As did Austin Hays before him, and Bryson Stott before him, Stubbs popped out on the first pitch. Seven straight series openers is not the active losing streak making most of the headlines in the MLB sphere at the moment, but with no due respect to the Chicago White Sox, it’s probably the more unexpected one. At least their next chance to snap it will come at a venue that’s given the Phillies some wonderful memories over the last calendar year: Arizona’s Chase Field.
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