Phillies hitters sit with the sting of a dud from NLDS Game 1 raising familiar doubts

PHILADELPHIA – It was 7:55 p.m. when Trea Turner strutted through the Phillies clubhouse on Saturday. The result, a 6-2 loss to the New York Mets, had rung for 31 minutes at Citizens Bank Park. But Turner was still in his full uniform. He carried two bats. His hat was turned backwards. Some of his teammates had showered and left. The sting blew across the room.

Turner needed time. He analyzed video of his tackles from Game 1 of this National League Division Series. Turner batted between two lefties and went 0-4 with two strikeouts. The Phillies held 19 batters without a hit midway through the game. This did not happen with the $300 million shortstop. But it's impossible to look at these Phillies now and not think about last October. The seeds of doubt were sown in this stadium, and as hit after hit failed to allow hard contact by a Phillies hitter, the nerves oozed from a sold-out stadium.

“You don’t know when it’s going to happen,” Turner said. “That’s why you have to keep pushing. Keep looking forward to the next pitch, the next opportunity. Tomorrow is a new day.”

Tomorrow is Sunday and the Phillies have to win. For the first time in the postseason under manager Rob Thomson, the Phillies lost a Game 1. The Phillies have failed to win the series losing a Game 1 all seven times in franchise history.

So they have to do something that has never happened in the Phillies' 142 seasons of baseball.

The Phillies lost Saturday despite not allowing an extra-base hit. Zack Wheeler delivered one of the greatest pitching performances the Phillies have ever seen in October – 111 pitches in seven innings of one-hit ball – and they lost. They watched as their top two relievers – Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm – led the way in every count and left the Mets trailing by five runs. They received a familiar jolt, a blast from Kyle Schwarber, and they still lost.

That eighth inning was 24 minutes of hell for a Phillies team that was primed to win in October — a team that was on the road for months this season. The bullpen collapse was unexpected. “It was breathtaking,” Thomson said. “It was.” But the Phillies had left the door open for New York's resilient lineup.

Zack Wheeler thanks the crowd after allowing no runs and one hit in seven innings. (Eric Hartline/Imagn Images)

This game was lost in the middle inning as Wheeler did everything he could to give the Phillies a win.

“Obviously as an offense we blew that start,” Bryce Harper said. “It’s the same thing, man. Chasing balls in the dirt. We didn't delve as deeply into the count as we should have. We have to understand what they want to do to us and flip the switch on crime.”

The same. What are the Mets trying to do?

“Of course they’re going to bury stuff and try to get us to hunt as much as possible,” Harper said. “They have really good pitching. But we have really good batsmen here. We just have to persevere and understand that we can do it.”

So it was interesting to hear the contrasts between the two teams after a harrowing Game 1. Brandon Nimmo, who took advantage of an error on Strahm's 0-2 fastball, praised the Mets pitchers for keeping it alive. They knew Wheeler was nearly unbeatable, especially with the challenging shadows affecting both offenses. But a one-run deficit allowed Nimmo to “still think small.” The Mets struggled in the eighth inning with five singles and a walk. They scored two runs on sacrifice flies.

“It’s about doing whatever the game asks of you at that point,” Nimmo said. “If that’s just a sac fly, if it’s about putting the ball in play, if it’s about passing a guy — whatever it is. And all of these people believe in going back up with a plan, understanding the baseball situation and not doing too much. Well, sometimes it’s a home run or a big double or something like that.”

Sometimes that's not the case.

“I feel like from the first to the seventh inning it was really hard to see a baseball,” Nick Castellanos said. “I think on both sides. What did we have? Three hits in the first seven innings. I think both teams played better defense after the sun disappeared behind the stadium.”

That's what they did. But the ones in New York were better. Nimmo said he couldn't see any laces on the ball. “So you’re literally just swinging at a black ball,” Nimmo said. The shadows at Citizens Bank Park are worst, according to hitters, when the mound is dark and the hitter's eye is still bright. It was like that for most of the game.

“I don’t know if I saw much,” Mets third baseman Mark Vientos said. “It was hard watching the baseball for sure. But both teams struggled with it.”

They were. Castellanos acknowledged this. Game 2 starts at the same time – 4:08 p.m. What now?

“It’s going to be tough,” Castellanos said. “It will be the same for us as it was for them. We have to find a way to deal with it.”

Bryson Stott warms up before Game 1 in front of a loud crowd as shadows cover the field. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)

The scouting report is now clear. Teams are throwing fewer fastballs into the Phillies' zone. They cause damage when pitchers make mistakes. Opponents throw more off-speed pitches on both strikes and balls. The Phillies are aggressive. They will hunt.

“Sometimes you're passive and all of a sudden you're able to hit good shots,” Castellanos said. “And then sometimes you're ready to hit and you don't have anything in the zone to hit. I think the first step is to just wash it down, come together and understand that this isn't going to be easy. Just regroup and fight. That’s all we can do.”

Harper said, “We have to do better.”

Turner brooded over his clubs. He chased a pitch in his first at-bat, strike three. On his second attack, he made a 0-0 substitution called a strike. Later in the at-bat, he hit a curveball in a similar spot and missed. It was a ball. “You kind of think you have to tackle it,” Turner said. Then he came across a fielder's choice.

He came to the plate in the fifth inning with a runner on second and one out. Johan Rojas had a nine-pitch walk to start the inning. His run would have been tremendous insurance.

Turner tracked a changeup on the first pitch and sniffed it. He took a ball. He faced a left-handed hitter, David Peterson, who had been a starter all season but was now in his 46th spot two days after his decisive win in Milwaukee. This was Turner's moment.

He dropped a slider down and away. It floated into foul territory and landed in the glove of Mets first baseman Pete Alonso for the second time. Harper struck. Rojas was stranded there.

“A lot of balls that I personally watched ended up on the edge of the penalty area,” Turner said. “It’s hard to get to these places. I don't know. I wish I could point at something and take these pitches or do this or that. But I think I personally made the right decisions today. It's more executive. And I didn’t do it well enough.”

Maybe Sunday will be better. But things are quickly getting late for these Phillies.