History really does repeat itself sometimes. The Phillies are hoping that won’t happen this week.
After their thrilling 7-6, walk-off win over the Mets in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, the Phils roll into Citi Field for Games 3 and 4 tonight and tomorrow night in New York, their best-of-five series tied at a game apiece. Nick Castellanos’ game-winning heroics helped the Phillies avoid a calamitous situation.
Entering the 2024 playoffs, 90 teams have fallen behind 2-0 in a best-of-five series, and only 10 of them have gone on to win the final three games and advance (11%). However, since the Division Series switched to a 2-2-1 format (the team with home field advantage getting Games 1, 2 and 5 in their ballparks), a team in the Phillies’ position has won the series 34% of the time.
Certainly, Mets fans are feeling pretty good knowing that history favors their position two times out of three, and the Phillies know all too well what it’s like to be in New York’s shoes right now.
In 2022, the Phillies won Game 1 in Atlanta, lost Game 2 and then pounded the Braves in Games 3 and 4 to move on to the National League Championship Series. Last year, the Phils beat the Braves in Atlanta again in Game 1, and then lost Game 2 thanks to a late-inning Braves comeback.
Remember Harper getting doubled off first and the Truist Field crowd going berserk? All momentum seemingly switched to Atlanta in that one moment.
Remind you of anything?
That momentum didn’t carry over into Game 3 in Philadelphia, however, especially once Bryce Harper destroyed Bryce Elder and Orlando Arcia with multiple dingers and bombs.
They then closed things out in dramatic fashion at home in Game 4, once again moving on to the NLCS.
So yes, the Phillies are trying to avoid being the Atlanta Braves of the previous two seasons tonight and tomorrow night. Even one win in Queens gets the series back to Game 5 for another potential Zack Wheeler start, something the Braves were unable to do in each of the previous two Divisional rounds.
So how can the Phillies avoid a similar fate? We discussed a bit of this on the latest Hittin’ Season podcast, which can be downloaded below.
For starters, let’s look at the starters.
Last year, Atlanta had to turn to Bryce Elder, a 24-year-old righthander who made the NL All Star team last season but put up a 5.11 ERA in his final 13 starts of the season, failing to make it to the fourth inning in either of his last two. The Phillies lit him up like a Christmas tree in last year’s Game 3. In 2022, Spencer Strider, then a rookie, was recovering from an oblique injury and ran out of gas in the third inning of the Rhys Hoskins Bat Spike Game.
Tonight, the Phillies hand the ball to Aaron Nola, who has put together his most consistent season since 2018. In his last three starts he had a 3.00 ERA, struck out 23 and walked just three in 18 innings of work. Yes, he had a couple clunkers at the start of September, and yes, he is susceptible to another clunker at any given moment, but he is also a proven postseason performer (3.70 ERA in nine career postseason starts), including a 1.54 ERA in his previous two Division Series starts against the Braves.
In his only start at Citi Field this year, Nola pitched his only complete game shutout of the season, a 4-0 victory on May 14 in which he gave up just four hits and struck out eight with no walks allowed. In September, the Mets blew him up at Citizens Bank Park, tagging him for six runs in 4⅓ innings.
Mets Game 3 starter Sean Manaea has had mixed success against the Phils this year, starting three times against Philadelphia, with the first and third games at Citi Field, the second in London.
- May 13: 6.0 innings, 1 ER, 6 strikeouts, 4 hits allowed – Phils win, 5-4
- June 8: 3.2 innings, 6 ER, 3 strikeouts, 7 hits allowed – Phils win, 7-2
- September 21: 7.0 innings, 3 ER, 6 strikeouts, 3 hits allowed – Mets win, 6-3
Game 3 appears to at least be an even pitching matchup on paper.
Game 4 would feature Ranger Suarez against Jose Quintana, another pitching matchup that appears at least even on paper, provided Suarez rediscovers something close to what he was in April and May.
Even if the Phils win just one of these games in New York, they regain home field advantage and would come back to Philadelphia with another Wheeler start against a bullpen game for the Mets. On paper, that sounds like a guaranteed win, although we saw the Phils lose under that exact scenario in Game 1.
There are differences between these Phillies and the two Atlanta teams they ousted, but for the moment, the parallels are eerily similar. After the Phillies jumped out to their fast start this year, won the division and clinched a wild-card round bye, losing the NLDS to a No. 6 seeded wild card team was always the nightmare scenario for Phils fans, and that it could happen to a hated divisional rival in much the same way the Braves were defeated by a hated division rival only makes the parallels clearer.
So the mission is clear. Win at least one game in New York. Get it back to Philly for Game 5 and reverse recent history.
