Phillies Save Season with Game 2 of NLDS
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There is so much urgency in the MLB playoffs that beginning a series with a two-game losing streak could seem like an insurmountable hole to climb out of.
That is certainly the case in the National League and American League Division Series, which are only a best-of-five format.
With that as a backdrop, it’s not hyperbolic to suggest that the Phillies dramatic 7-6 win over the New York Mets in Game 2 of the NLDS, saved their season.
If the Phillies are able to achieve postseason success, they will no doubt point to the Game 2 win as the turning point.
That’s because the Phillies’ bats and bullpen picked an inopportune time to have an off-day during their opening 6-2 loss to the New York Mets at Citizens Bank Park.
After Kyle Schwarber led off the bottom of the first of Game 1 with a home run to give the Phillies their lone lead of the day, the crowd at Citizens Bank Park went bonkers.
The homefield advantage for the Phillies is substantial. Many of the players and national baseball reporters and broadcasters have acknowledged that it is the best homefield advantage in baseball.
Yet after Schwarber’s home run, we know what happened next: The Phillies' bats went silent, and they wasted seven shutout innings from Zack Wheeler, who allowed just one hit and struck out nine.
That 1-0 lead turned into a 5-1 deficit in the eighth inning when the bullpen imploded and ended in a 6-2 defeat.
Wasting Wheeler’s gem was bad enough, but the Phillies coughed up a game at home and extended their postseason losing streak at Citizens Bank Park to three (counting games 6 and 7 against Arizona in last year’s NLCS).
Suggesting that Game 2 was a must-win situation was a realistic proclamation.
When the Mets took a 3-0 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, the ballpark was as dead as the Phillies offense.
Then Bryce Harper willed the team back with a two-run home run, followed by a solo shot by Nick Castellanos.
The game was then a back-and-forth affair.
Mets 4-3 in the top of the seventh, Phillies 6-4 after eight innings, before the Mets tied the score at 6-6 with two runs in the ninth, only for Castellanos to win it for the Phillies with a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth.
Phillies 7, Mets 6.
It is a Mets team that proved its late-inning chops both against Atlanta in its 161st game of the regular season and then against Milwaukee in winning the wild card series 2 games to 1.
This time, the Phillies held off the Mets before heading for the next two games in Citi Field.
Again, who knows how this crazy series will end, but what is known is that the Phillies’ comeback win in Game 2 has given this team renewed life, not to mention confidence.
If this is a long postseason, as many Phillies followers anticipate, everybody can point to this first playoff win of 2024 as the definite turning point.
Photo: Courtesy Phillies Twitter/X
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Author: Marc Narducci
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