Phillies Face Elimination Way Sooner than Expected, Hoped

The Phillies may play their final game of the year today.

A 2022 World Series loss after taking a 2-1 series lead, followed by a 2023 NLCS collapse after taking a 3-2 series lead, and now a likely 2024 NLDS loss for a Phillies team more talented than the previous two. It’s the stuff of nightmares.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, of course. Ranger Suarez will get the ball tonight with the season on the line. A win would send the series back to Philadelphia for the finale, and you’d have to like the Phillies’ chances in a game five. Do you still believe?

Lots of Phils talk in today’s newsletter. Let’s jump in.

In the email today:

• 🌞 Some Unsolicited Phillies Optimism

• 💩 Eagles Pull a Friday Afternoon News Dump on a Tuesday

• 😨 Be Afraid, but Watch Game 4 Because...Who Knows?

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

Phillies world will (rightfully) be filed with gloom and doom throughout the day. The situation is grim. Fans have resigned themselves to a game four Phils loss.

But for the minority of folks who choose to be optimistic, here are three reasons to believe the Fightins can pull off an NLDS comeback:

1) These situations are never as dire as we think.

The situation is not hopeless. For those emotionally invested in the team, things may feel hopeless. But the oddsmakers in Vegas, looking at the situation objectively, have the Phillies as slight favorites (-116 at one popular sportsbook) in NLDS game four.

And if the Phillies win game four, the fan base will flip from distraught to cocky in a nanosecond. The entire series would come down to a Zack Wheeler start in Citizens Bank Park.

Fans old enough to remember game one of this NLDS know that’s not a guaranteed win. But the Phils would be favored once again.

2) Winning two games in a row is not uncommon.

The Phillies won two games in a row dozens of times this season. Their longest winning streak was seven games, which they accomplished twice. Those streaks, by definition, began after a loss. And the team looked as bad (or worse) in some of those losses than they did Tuesday night.

3) There’s a chance that Ranger Suarez rounds into form just in time.

Ranger Suarez’s performance was one of the biggest differences between the scorching hot early-season Phils and the scuffling late-season Phils.

Suarez went 9-0 with a 1.36 ERA in his first ten starts of 2024. But he spent time on the IL mid-season, and he went 2-6 with a 6.04 ERA in his final ten starts.

So while Suarez has been lethal for the Phillies in previous Octobers, it’s entirely fair to wonder if he can flip the switch on Wednesday. As Anthony writes here, however, there are reasons to believe Suarez is close to returning to form. Namely:

• He made a mechanical adjustment after his final start of the season (a start in which he allowed six runs);

• He reportedly looked good when throwing two innings in Wednesday’s intrasquad game; and

• Rob Thomson told reporters that Suarez’s velocity is up and his command is looking the best it’s been since his injury.

Still not convinced that the Phils can pull this off? Neither are we.

But there’s a chance.

It’s usually Friday afternoons when multi-billion dollar organizations dump their worst news on a hopefully distracted populace.

So imagine our surprise when the Eagles chose essentially the close of business on a Tuesday to announce a fairly significant roster reduction.

A cynic (OK, it’s us, we’re cynical) would point out that this announcement was made something like an hour before the first pitch of Game 3. Talk about a distraction.

Eagles fans never became attached to White since he never appeared in a single game for the team. But his very short Eagles story is still worth analyzing, primarily because what was said and done carries a lot of subtext.

• White joined the Eagles in March on a one-year, $4 million contract to strengthen their linebacker corps, and initially practiced with the first-team defense in training camp.

• White’s troubles here began when Nakobe Dean passed him on the depth chart by the end of the summer.

• White was inactive for all four games this season, due to:

  • An ankle injury in Week 1 (notably, White did not even travel to Brazil).

  • Wearing the tag “healthy scratch” for the next two games.

  • Missing the Tampa Bay loss (you know, the one where the Eagles were down 24-0 after like 20 minutes) for personal reasons.

• White, 26, previously played five seasons with the Buccaneers, earning an All-Rookie Team spot and a Pro Bowl selection in 2021, with 83 tackles and 2.5 sacks last season.

The release agreement will likely save the Eagles money since it happened before the trade deadline. Moreover, White probably preferred a chance to hook on somewhere else before this season went much longer.

There will definitely be a market for a 26-year-old former Pro Bowl linebacker. The ink was barely dry on White’s release before speculation ramped up online.

The subtext we see here is the Eagles using White’s release to send a message to the team, i.e., “White was expendable, and a lot of you other guys are, too.”

Whether the players get that message remains to be seen, starting on Sunday at the Linc against the Browns.

Phillies fans went to the Social Media Disgrace Formerly Known as Twitter in the wake of Game 3 and did what Phillies fans often do in times of trouble.

Hey, wait, we recognize that guy!

Anyway, the trouble with the standard, understandable overreaction here is that for all any of us know, this will be the best Phillies team we see for a long while.

No one wants to think about that, but it’s true. You don’t have to look too far to see dire predictions for the immediate future of this Phillies iteration if the Mets close them out.

We hate to say it…it might be so much worse than that. There are dozens of versions of this (whatever you call a post on X) out there:

Alarmist? Definitely. To be dismissed out of hand? Not so fast my friend.

The 2011 Phillies won 102 times and had the best record in baseball by five games. Like the 2024 Phillies, the 2011 team was loaded with high-priced veterans at or nearing the end of their primes. It took 11 seasons to get back to the playoffs, by which time the stars of the 2011 Phillies had long since left the game behind.

If you have the stomach for it, think back before the glorious 2007-2011 run. The Phillies missed the playoffs from 1994-2006. And also from 1984-1992.

So this is a warning. If you decide you can’t watch Game 4 because you can’t stomach the thought of watching the Mets eliminate the Phillies, fine.

Just know the risk.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

The Phillies won game one of their NLCS against the Dodgers on this date in 2008.

📊 Poll

Results from Tuesday:

🔗 Links

• ♀️Jessica Campbell became the first female assistant coach in NHL history.

• ✈️ The Jets fired Robert Saleh.

• ⚾️ There’s a pretty compelling argument that the Phillies would be in a lot of trouble against the winner of the other NLDS even if they get that far.

• 🐍 Maybe the saddest part of the Union’s season is that they are the only team currently out of the playoff picture with a positive goal difference.

• 🤮 If you think bloated conferences like the new Big 10 are bad for college football, have they got a “Super League” for you.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

October 9, 2024

• Phillies at Mets, NLDS Game 4 (Mets lead series 2-1), 5:08 p.m. (FS1)

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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