ATLANTA — Four days before Zack Wheeler trotted out of the left-field bullpen at Truist Park, he toed the rubber on a rainy Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies, struggling late, had lost four straight. Somehow, they had not yet sealed a postseason berth. On the final day of the regular reason, with their magic number down to one, they needed their ace to throw.
The veteran right-hander pitched six innings of one-run ball, grabbing a victory to send the Phillies to the playoffs. But the fact that he needed to go ruled him out for the first two games of the National League Wild Card Series against the Braves. By the time Wheeler made his first appearance of the postseason, Philadelphia was already trailing by three runs in a do-or-die Game 3 on Thursday night.
Heading into the playoffs, the Phillies could not afford to take their foot off the gas. That meant top starters — core members of the rotation, the strength of the team — had to keep pitching into the last weekend of the regular season. The poor showing had an effect on the Phillies’ seeding and chances in the postseason.
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” Wheeler said. “We didn’t play as well as we wanted down the stretch, especially right there at the end. We kind of had to piece it together this series. Not ideal, but we’re all pros here, and when we get the ball, it’s time to compete. It’s up to us at the end of the day.”
Wheeler allowed two runs in four relief innings in a 6-2 Game 3 loss that eliminated Philadelphia from the postseason. With only three days of rest beforehand, he was not named the starting pitcher for the matchup. That nod belonged to Aaron Nola, who was fully rested following a one-inning disaster on Saturday; the Phillies had him start just three days after his previous outing in an attempt to shore up a bullpen game — and avoid using Wheeler to finish the regular season. Obviously, that was not successful.
Nola gave up a three-run home run to Michael Harris II on Thursday and did not get out of the second inning. The pitching plans were not exactly how the Phillies would have liked to draw them up. The team’s performance near the end of the regular season made everything more difficult in the playoffs.
“No question,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “You’d love to be able to set your pitching up and them be rested and all that kind of stuff. But that’s not the way it went. We had to fight to get ourselves in, and to do what we had to do to get in, we had to do what we had to do basically every game in the series. You never know how that goes.”
The Phillies went 10-14 in September and 2-4 in their last homestand of the year versus the Rays and Brewers. They let it play out until the last second, but they managed to hold on and get the No. 6 seed in the NL after entering the month in the league’s top Wild Card spot. But in the clubhouse celebration on Sunday and leading up to the start of the Wild Card Series, Phillies players expressed hope that they’d capitalize on a clean slate. However, their regular-season issues continued to hurt them.
“We got in, and the regular season, you kind of forget about it, as much as we can,” Nola said. “Once you get into the postseason, everybody starts fresh. It’s the same baseball, but it’s a different type of baseball once you get into the postseason. We battled out there. It was a good team over there, the Braves, and they just played better than us.”
It wasn’t as if the Phillies were hopeless. They still had the ability to use left-hander Jesús Luzardo in Game 1. He threw five solid innings in his first start since Sept. 7, coming only two days after he tossed a scoreless inning out of the bullpen in his return from the injured list. The Phillies had a lead in the eighth inning with their best reliever on the mound. Then Jhoan Duran gave up a three-run go-ahead homer to Austin Riley.
Lefty Cristopher Sánchez started Game 2, the Phillies’ lone win in the Wild Card Series. Both Nola, who authored a second-half turnaround, and Wheeler were available for the winner-take-all Game 3.
“Obviously, it’s unfortunate we weren’t able to line it up exactly how you want,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said, “but that’s baseball. That’s how the playoffs works. A lot of times, you don’t get to throw your best three out there in a row. So that’s not an excuse. We still have to just come out here and execute, and we still had opportunities in the series.”
At the same time, it’s easy to wonder what could’ve happened if Wheeler had been able to pitch Game 1, or on regular rest at all in Atlanta. Maybe that wouldn’t have saved the Phillies, whose offensive limitations and bullpen deficiencies were on display. However, it only would have taken another win or two in the regular season to have seen how it would’ve played out.
“Looking back, having your pitching set up is really important this time of year,” shortstop Trea Turner said. “We didn’t do a good job playing down the stretch to kind of have that happen. So we battled as much as we could in this series, but having our three guys go would’ve been a better situation for us. We didn’t play well enough to do it.”
