Phillies at last punch playoff ticket after tumultuous week

PHILADELPHIA -- The Phillies celebrated on Sunday.

The sights and sounds of them popping champagne and beer bottles in the home clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park felt like an inevitability just a few days ago. They had a four-game lead over Arizona for the final NL Wild Card with five games to play, and no team since postseason play began in 1903 had blown a lead like that, according to Elias Sports Bureau. Nobody. Ever.

But the Phillies stumbled and nearly became the first. They lost four in a row last week, while Arizona won four in a row. Suddenly, the Phils needed to beat the Rays on the final day of the 162-game season to punch their ticket to the postseason and avoid being immortalized alongside the 1964 Phillies, who infamously blew a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 to play to lose the NL pennant to St. Louis.

The Phillies won, 7-3.

So, they partied because that’s what baseball teams do when they clinch a trip to the postseason. It has been a long, trying season for the Phillies. So, regardless of how fans felt about the past several weeks -- and nobody could argue that it was bad and a huge disappointment -- they always planned to enjoy the moment.

Remember how it started. The Phillies opened 9-19, costing manager Rob Thomson his job on April 28. Don Mattingly took his place.

The Phillies not only rebounded, but they had one of the best records in baseball for months. They looked like a postseason threat, too, because they had Jesús Luzardo, Cristopher Sánchez and Zack Wheeler atop the rotation and because the offense finally seemed to click following Luis Arraez’s arrival from the Giants on Aug. 3.

But then the Phillies stumbled. The offense went from one of the best in baseball in August to literally one of the worst in September. The team crashed especially hard in the season’s final week, playing their worst baseball at the worst possible time.​

They scored three runs during their four-game losing streak, including a 21-inning scoreless streak.

It was their longest scoreless skid in 15 months.

It wasn’t a great way to enter a must-win game on Sunday. Mattingly called it a Game 7, which it was.

The Phillies were lucky to have Wheeler. They planned to skip his Sunday start and pitch him in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series on Tuesday. But they scrapped those plans because they needed their ace to deliver.

He did. He allowed one run in six innings as the Phillies took a 7-1 lead.

Bryson Stott, starting in the cleanup spot for just the seventh time in his career, hit a two-out double in the first inning to score a run to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead. J.T. Realmuto snapped an 0-for-34 slump with a double to score a run in the second to make it 2-0. Kyle Schwarber’s two-out double scored two runs to make it 4-0.

The ball left Schwarber’s bat at 116.8 mph. It was his hardest-hit base hit this season, by 3.8 mph.

Bryce Harper’s homer in the fifth was the team’s first since Tuesday and Harper’s first since Sept. 12.

Alex McFarlane allowed two runs in the seventh, but Mattingly had Jesús Luzardo pitch the eighth. Luzardo might have been the Phillies’ best pitcher this season, but he hadn’t pitched since Sept. 7 because of inflammation in his left shoulder.

Sunday was the first time he had faced hitters since then. But he was the Phillies’ best option, so why not?

Luzardo retired the side on four pitches.

He could be in the Phillies’ bullpen this week. So could Wheeler. If they can hit just a little bit, maybe they can beat Atlanta like they did in the 2022 and '23 NLDS.

It begins on Tuesday.