Splitting the first two NLDS games in Atlanta was always the goal, but not like that. The Phillies accomplished the mission, but one got the sense that they’d given an inch with the way they blew Game 2. The fear, of course, was that the Braves would take a mile.
Perhaps that all would’ve been the case if Austin Riley’s eighth-inning home run was the climax. It wasn’t.
Instead, that came at the very end, when the first ever postseason 8-5-3 double play evened the series at one apiece. On its face, it was salt in the wound. A loss that already stung plenty, made 100 times worse by its punctuation.
The Phillies saw it differently.
Forget, momentarily, who said what 20 minutes later. Better yet, read about it elsewhere. The spark the Phillies needed from Game 2 didn’t solely come from the opposing clubhouse, learned on delay the following day.
It came from the field in real-time.
“I think that the way the game ended in Atlanta was perfect,” Nick Castellanos said after the Phillies homered and stared and homered some more and stared some more for three hours straight on Wednesday, “because I think that that jolt of emotion and kind of seeing them really celebrate kind of set the tone for this game.”
Playoff wins — and playoff wins capped off in such dramatic fashion — should be celebrated the way the Braves celebrated. Castellanos isn’t suggesting otherwise. But there’s something to be said for closure. When Matt Olson pumped his fist and screamed as he caught the final throw from Austin Riley, retiring a retreating Bryce Harper and sending a stadium into downright delirium, there was closure, no emotional letdown. What’s done was done. Phillies 1, Braves 1. Back to Philly.
Well-placed as the Braves’ Monday celebration was, it was, thus far, the Phillies’ 2023 postseason low point. No degree of justification makes watching someone else celebrate those moments, inherently at your expense, enjoyable.
There was a chip on the Phillies’ collective shoulder heading into Game 3. That was the message that Castellanos and Bryce Harper conveyed, intentionally or not, with the Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders and Colorado Buffaloes apparel they sported walking into Citizens Bank Park. Castellanos denied after the game that it had anything to do with Orlando Arcia’s comments, but the catalyst for the clothing choice seemed obvious at first glance: Arcia and the Braves had made it personal, and perhaps, at least for Castellanos, there was an added subplot.
And Castellanos, who had promised after Game 2 the Phillies would respond, entered the night with two homers in five at bats against Bryce Elder in his career. Both taters came in a wild extra-inning affair just three weeks earlier. Castellanos had history against Elder, and the extra motivation didn’t hurt.
“I don’t know what Castellanos is seeing right now off me,” Elder said after the game, per The Athletic‘s David O’Brien. “He’s just seeing a beach ball.”
Citizens Bank Park was uncharacteristically tense on Wednesday until Castellanos hit a beach ball into an ocean of red, his first of two big flies. It tied the game at one and ignited a tidal wave: the Phillies’ second six-run third inning in Game 3 of the NLDS against the Braves in as many years, en route to “hanging ten” on the night.
It was an output that once felt far-fetched. A 1-0 lead set the previous half-inning built upon the momentum the Braves had claimed with a screaming comeback in Game 2 and the emphatic conclusion it reached in the ninth inning.
That was how it appeared, at least. But the Phillies had long since moved on from their Atlanta trip, because Game 2 didn’t leave any ambiguity.
Game 3 didn’t, either.
Must-read (or watch) Phillies content
Game 3 of the NLDS produced some incredible content, and Phillies Nation was all over it:
- Tim Kelly wrote about Harper’s response to Arcia’s now infamous jab and what the Phillies’ slugger said about it afterward.
- He also wrote about Arcia and Travis d’Arnaud’s misplaced belief that the comment shouldn’t have been reported on at all.
- Harper was an open book about his response, but also about his love for playing in Philadelphia and the journey that got him there, which Destiny Lugardo chronicled.
- Bailey Digh has the game recap from a special evening of déjà -vus.
- The Phillies can add another déjà -vu to the list by closing out the Braves in Game 4. If they do that, it’ll happen in powder blue fashion.
Other Phillies content to check out next:
- The Athletic‘s Matt Gelb wrote about a night that all of Harper’s teammates saw coming.
- Alex Coffey of The Philadelphia Inquirer did, too.
- Lost in the mayhem: a scoreless eighth inning from Orion Kerkering. Scott Lauber, also of the Inquirer, wrote before the game about how it may be time for the Phillies to unleash him — and a blueprint for doing so.
Former Phillie Nation
- The Phillies will try Thursday to become the fourth and final team to punch their 2023 Championship Series ticket. The second? The Houston Astros, whose Héctor Neris struck out three of five batters in 1 1/3 scoreless innings in the clinching Game 4.
- Ha ha, atta boy, Cutch.
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