One final feeble night from lineup and bullpen in nightmarish end for Phillies

One final feeble night from lineup and bullpen in nightmarish end for Phillies originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

NEW YORK — The two main reasons why the Phillies fell behind in the NLDS were the two main reasons why they lost the NLDS and are headed home earlier than any of them would have expected.

The offense didn’t show up, and the relievers the Phillies relied on the most throughout the regular season were wholly ineffective.

Just like Game 1, the Phillies took a one-run lead but failed to build on it. They kept the Mets in it by pushing just one across when they had runners on second and third with one out in the top of the fourth and stranding two baserunners with one out in the sixth.

All night long, all series long, the Phillies just needed breathing room. They spent less than a half-inning of the NLDS leading by multiple runs.

Despite their slim advantage in the middle innings Wednesday night, the Phillies never looked in control of Game 4. The Mets’ opportunities against Ranger Suarez were plentiful through the first three innings but they went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position until the bottom of the sixth, when they loaded the bases for the third time and cleared them on Francisco Lindor’s grand slam off Carlos Estevez.

Three of the runs in the 4-1 loss were charged to Jeff Hoffman, who carried a 1.65 ERA into the final weekend of the regular season before allowing 10 runs in his final 2⅓ innings. He took the losses in Games 1 and 4.

Estevez did what the Phillies acquired him to do in the regular season with a 2.57 ERA but he, too, ran out of gas at the end and struggled to miss bats. Lindor’s game-changing slam came on the fourth pitch Estevez threw.

All told, the Phillies’ bullpen allowed 17 runs in 12⅔ innings in the series.

As poorly as it performed, the offense was even worse. The Phillies scored two runs before the sixth inning in the NLDS — two runs in 20 innings. One was Kyle Schwarber’s leadoff homer in Game 1. The other scored on an error by Mets third baseman Mark Vientos in the fourth inning of Game 4.

The Phillies sent the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning with nobody out on back-to-back walks vs. closer Edwin Diaz but Kody Clemens struck out, Brandon Marsh flied out and Schwarber went down swinging to end the game and season.

There’s no specific hitter to single out because the Phils came up short throughout the lineup. J.T. Realmuto was hitless in the NLDS. Alec Bohm was benched in Game 2 and went 1-for-13 without an RBI. Trea Turner singled three times and walked twice but had no extra-base hits. The Phillies’ 6 through 9 hitters were a combined 4-for-52.

Now, they go home for the winter. It was supposed to be different this year. The Phillies crashed the playoff party and stormed through it in 2022 then were even better in 2023, routing teams through their first eight playoff games until a drastic correction took place in the NLCS, largely in the form of their own over-aggressiveness.

The 95-win team this season was the best of the three, the deepest and most talented roster. It hearkens back to 2011 when the Phillies put together the best collection of talent during that five-year run but were outplayed and upset in the NLDS by the Cardinals.

The Phillies looked like baseball’s best team the entire first half, going 62-34 and putting a franchise-record eight players in the All-Star Game. But what they did in the second half, playing at a .500 level, proved more indicative of the team they turned out to be.

Zack Wheeler had another Cy Young-caliber season. He, Aaron Nola and Cristopher Sanchez made every start. Harper, Schwarber and Nick Castellanos each played 145 games. Players’ primes don’t last forever and this is another year wasted.

Many of their players will remain Phillies in 2025, but this particular cast of characters looks to have run its course.