PHILADELPHIA — Same uniforms. Same home park. Many of the same names.
But this just isn’t the Phillies team I watched play the Mets 19 times this year. They won five. I have no idea how.
I watched Alec Bohm make three errors in one April game against the Mets and get caught on camera mouthing, “I hate this [bleeping] place” after being booed into submission at Citizens Bank Park. I witnessed the Mets assemble a seven-run ninth inning at Citizens Bank in May to win 8-7 against a Phillies bullpen more flammable than an oily rag. There was the game in August at Citizens Bank in which the Mets trailed 4-0 and 7-4 and won 10-9, in part, because a former bank employee named Nate Fisher, in what might be his only major league game ever, threw three shutout innings of relief.
For most of this season, the Phillies were booed at home for games like those. They were top-heavy in talent without enough depth or defense or relief pitching. They finished 14 games behind the Braves and Mets. They were the last of 12 teams to qualify for the playoffs. Keith Hernandez was right about that team.
But this isn’t that team. This one is two wins now from capturing a championship. This one executes on defense, shuts down opponents from its pen and has turned Citizens Bank into the loudest support system in sports. It’s a red-towel-waving, decibel-raising lovefest. In Philadelphia. In 2022. It may be the greatest makeover, do over, it ain’t over til it is over in the history of sport.
We have entered that inexplicable region. The hot October (now November) team that rides confidence and momentum. For example, by nearly any measurable, Nick Castellanos was the majors’ worst defensive right fielder. Somehow he has become the offspring of Mookie Betts and Aaron Judge. He saved Game 1 for the Phillies with a sliding catch and made a similar one against Jose Altuve on the first pitch of Tuesday night’s Game 3. And the Phillies were off to taking a two-games-to-one lead in the 118th World Series.
Actually they were on … just about every Lance McCullers Jr. pitch. Most of them off-speed as McCullers ran from his sinker. Four of the five homers the righty yielded in what would become a 7-0 Phillies triumph were on off-speed pitches. That was no misprint. Five homers. It is a postseason record off of one pitcher. Houston manager Dusty Baker for some reason let him absorb every one, though the Phillies either had deduced a tell or McCullers was off or both.
McCullers had permitted one homer to a lefty in 96 plate appearances this year. That was by Kyle Schwarber on the first pitch of an Oct. 3 Phillies win that clinched a playoff spot. Houston probably wishes now it had swept and perhaps kept the Phils out of the playoffs. For in World Series Game 3, McCullers permitted three homers in nine lefty plate appearances.
The one to Bryce Harper, a two-run shot in the first inning as the fans chanted “M-V-P” set the tone to madhouse. Alec Bohm and lefty Brandon Marsh homered in the second. Marsh singled with one out in the fifth, turning the lineup over for a third time to Schwarber, whose 46 homers led the non-Judge MLB department. But Baker stuck with McCullers, whose 1-2 changeup Schwarber destroyed 443 feet to center. Still, Baker stayed with his starter. Rhys Hoskins clobbered a slider for a homer that made it 7-0. McCullers was done.
Baker also had stuck with McCullers as his Game 3 starter after a rain postponement Monday. But Phillies manager Rob Thomson switched from Noah Syndergaard to Ranger Suarez, who kept Hosuton tied to the infield in five shutout innings. And with the big lead, the Phillies deployed their weaker relievers — Connor Brogdon, Kyle Gibson, Nick Nelson and Andrew Bellatti — to complete the shutout. It means their “A” relievers Jose Alvarado, Seranthony Dominguez, Zach Eflin and David Robertson are available to be unleashed in Games 4-5.
But these days whoever the Phillies use out of that once flammable pen is succeeding. They have 12 ²/₃ scoreless innings this series. That helped the Phils run their home playoff record to 6-0. If it gets to 8-0, they will be champs — and this crowd is making a noisy impact.
Not with boos any longer. That was for a different Phillies team.
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