PHILADELPHIA -- The Phillies celebrated.
They popped champagne and beer bottles, smoked cigars and blared music in the home clubhouse on Sunday evening at Citizens Bank Park. It felt cathartic. It represented a fresh start. Last week, the Phillies had a four-game lead over Arizona for the final NL Wild Card spot with five games to play, and no team since postseason play began in 1903 had blown a lead like that.
But the Phillies stumbled. They lost four in a row, 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. It’s what baseball teams do when they clinch.
“It’s so hard to get here,” Trea Turner said. “We had such an up and down here as a whole team. We were talking about it in the cage earlier today. I think this is the first time I've ever had to play like 162. First time ever, 162 has counted for, you know, a big deal. So I think it's kind of a rare situation, and I'm glad we got the job done.”
It has been a long, trying season in Philadelphia. So regardless of how anybody felt about the past several weeks -- and nobody could argue they played poorly at times -- the Phillies always planned to celebrate this moment.
Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” was the first song to play in the clubhouse. It was fitting.
“Everything resets,” Bryce Harper said. “You get into October and everything resets obviously.
“We’re the type of team that, you know, we don’t care … like I said, people’s opinions of us or what they think or what anybody thinks about our team. I mean, we're going to go in and do our job and we need to do our job. Obviously, we didn't play the best baseball we could in September. Should we have clinched two weeks ago? Probably. Right? But we didn’t. You know, we clinched today, and that's how the story's written right now.”
The Phillies started the season at 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 pitching well atop the rotation and because the offense finally seemed to click following Luis Arraez’s arrival from the Giants on Aug. 3.
But then they stumbled. The offense went from one of the best in baseball in August to one of the worst in September. They scored three runs during the four-game losing streak, which included a 21-inning scoreless streak.
Fans booed.
The Phillies were lucky to have Wheeler on Sunday. They planned to start him in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series against Atlanta on Tuesday, but they scrapped those plans to save their season.
He allowed one run in six innings as the Phillies took a 7-1 lead.
“We know who we are,” Wheeler said. “We just gotta play like it. At the beginning and at the end, we didn't play like it so much. So we gotta turn it up. We gotta be ready for Atlanta.”
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.
Harper’s homer in the fifth was the team’s first since Tuesday and Harper’s first since Sept. 12.
Fans cheered.
“Today, that was one of our better crowds, I thought,” Mattingly said. “You don't hear a lot of, ‘Let's go, Phillies!’" at our games. It's just waiting for things. Right? It'd be great if it would be like an uplifting-type scenario. In the Milwaukee series, somebody makes an out in the fourth with a guy on base, and it's like a boo. And I know it's the fans' right to do it, but it's like, you can either lift up or you can hold down, and if you lift the team up, you’ve got a game.”
Alex McFarlane allowed two runs in the seventh, then Luzardo pitched the eighth. He 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.
He retired the side on four pitches. He looked great. He said he’s available to start this week, if asked. If not, he’ll be available in the bullpen. The same is true for Andrew Painter, who is also in play to start this week.
Wheeler? He could pitch in Atlanta, too.
“I feel like I'm prepared to give the team whatever they ask, whatever they need,” Luzardo said.
The Phillies will need to get creative with their pitching to beat Atlanta. They will need their hitters to show up and beat Chris Sale on Tuesday.
It’s not impossible.
“The past is the past,” Luzardo said. “You play 162 games for a reason. I think this team has what it takes, and we obviously showed it throughout a full season. I don't think the last four days are indicative of what we can do. I think today was and I think that we look forward to Tuesday starting with a clean slate.”