ATLANTA — The first 15 innings of the NLDS couldn’t have gone much better for the Phillies.
After upsetting the Braves in Game 1, they built a four-run lead in the sixth inning of Game 2.
They had an ace on the mound with a fully stocked bullpen behind him. They shut down the best offense in baseball, one of the best lineups MLB has ever seen.
Then everything was revealed.
Zack Wheeler gave up a two-run homer to the last batter he faced, Travis d’Arnaud, with one out in the seventh inning.
Jose Alvarado came in and retired three straight outs before being lifted in favor of right-hander Jeff Hoffman as the top of Atlanta’s right-handed lineup approached. Hoffman hit Ronald Acuña Jr. with a pitch, inflicted a knockout on Ozzie Albies, and took a 1-2 lead over Austin Riley. Hoffman needed one more hit to end the eighth inning with the Phillies leading by one, but Riley ran the full count and hit an 89 mph slider that hit much of the plate over the wall in left field for the go-ahead home run.
The game ended with Nick Castellanos drilling a ball deep into right center where Michael Harris II jumped to catch the wall. He fired back a home run and the Braves doubled Bryce Harper from first base to close it out.
He took a 4-0 lead in Game 2 of the NLDS. Sounds familiar, right? The same thing happened to Cliff Lee and the Phillies in Game 2 of the 2011 NLDS against the Cardinals, a series they lost in heartbreaking fashion.
Hoffman has been so good this season, a major find by the Phillies’ front office, that he was signed to a minor league deal in opening week. He posted a 2.41 ERA in 54 games and earned the trust of manager Rob Thomson as a right-handed reliever in the middle of the inning. Nearly half of his appearances came in “dirty innings” with men on base. Time and time again, he worked his way out of those jams.
The only runs Hoffman has allowed since Aug. 25 have been in Atlanta. He was in a similar spot on September 20 against the top of the order Braves and the Phillies lost an eighth inning lead that night as well when Albies and Riley reached for him.
It spoiled a dominant start for Wheeler, who did not hit for the Braves for 5 innings and did not allow the ball to leave the field until the fifth inning. He has a career-high 10 playoff appearances.
It’s been a season of deja vu moments for the Phils. Slow start. Low point close to Memorial Day. June shift. Boom in the second half. Sweep the wild card round. A Game 1 victory in Atlanta over a team that has won more than 100 games.
One detail the Phillies hoped would go differently was Game 2. They had been eliminated in the same place a year earlier, with Wheeler on the mound and a chance to send the Braves to the brink of elimination.
Now, they will return home with a 1-1 draw, just as they did in 2022 when they won the NRL title in four games.
They got more runs and hits behind Wheeler by the end of the first half on Monday than they did in Game 2 last year. Trea Turner doubled and scored on Alec Bohm’s single, then the Phillies loaded the bases with singles by JT Realmuto and Castellanos before Atlanta lefty Max Fried grounded out.
Realmuto added to the lead, further subduing the crowd with a two-run opposite-pitch homer over the Braves’ game-high in the third inning.
The fourth inning was scored when Castellanos singled, stole second, advanced to third on d’Arnaud’s errant throw and scored on Bryson Stott’s fly. The Phillies are going wild in the postseason. They are stealing bases 9-for-10 in four playoff games and 7-for-8 in the NLDS alone. They took five extra bases by immediately responding to groundout throws.
The combination of a starting pitcher, small ball, and a timely home run looks to put them in a leadership position as the series moves to Philadelphia. Instead, they’ll board their flight home with little split, an outcome that may have seemed satisfactory to start the series but wouldn’t be good given how close they came to landing the plane on Monday night.
