Rob Thomson Shares Mindset of Phillies After Their Disappointing Elimination

When the Philadelphia Phillies were eliminated from last year’s National League Championship Series, the feeling was one of frustration as they let one slip away from them when they just needed a singular win at home to get back to the World Series.

With their elimination against the New York Mets in the NLDS round this time around, the feeling is one of disappointment.

The Phillies were dominant in the early part of the season, running roughshod over their opponents and holding the best record in Major League Baseball entering the All-Star break.

But there were serious alarm bells going off during the second half of the year when they got out of the gates slowly and dropped series after series after series.

Despite the team insisting they were just in a rut and nothing was overly wrong, it turned out the foundation was cracked and they never returned to their form from the first half of the season which caused them to get eliminated from the from the playoffs well short of reaching the World Series.

There’s no other way to describe this campaign than it being a failure.

Entering Spring Training, Philadelphia’s players and staff were talking about this being championship or bust, and even though they won their first NL East title since 2011, the end result was anything but what was expected of them.

“It always is [disappointing], especially when we got off to the start we got off on. Yeah, it’s disappointing,” manager Rob Thomson said at his postgame press conference. “The thing that’s not disappointing is the character that’s in our room, the professionalism, the way they go about their business, their work ethic. That’s not just the players, but it’s also the coaching staff, support staff. We have a rarely great group. We got beat in a short series.”

Disappointing is really the only way to describe things right now.

After the Phillies’ magical run to the World Series in 2022, they have taken a step back in the playoffs every year since, signaling there are some underlying issues.

Philadelphia was clearly ready to play early, getting out to a fast start this season before they fizzled out during the second half and in October.

Thomson was asked if he thinks his emphasis on that fast start played a role down the stretch.

“Something to look at, for sure. But my sense in the clubhouse with our players was that they never lost their edge. They may have gotten tired over the course of the year, but everybody does at some point. But the thing that we did do during the middle part of the year, or first third, we had some injuries and guys stepped up. That’s when we really kind of took off. But we fell off a little bit in the middle there. But I never categorize that as losing their edge. I don’t think those guys did,” he answered.

There will be a lot to think about for every member of the organization after failing to win a singular round in the playoffs.