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Late night for me, so we will get back to your regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow. Seriously, I will get y’all all caught up on the Eagles, Sixers and Flyers. Until then, I would recommend checking out PHLY and allphly.com. On the site, we have…

OK, let’s rant about the baseball team. You can reach me at [email protected]

Heading into the series, we knew that the Phillies had a tough task ahead of them. The Dodgers are an awesome team, no question about it. But how the Phils are losing is pretty tough to swallow, dropping two very winnable games at home due to a combination of three factors that were also front and center in their last two postseason demises:

Pull up a couch, it’s time for a therapy session. Post-game pod is here (thank you to all the Dodgers fans for juicing our numbers at PHLY). Jim’s story is here.

Game 2 was the worst of both worlds for the Phillies. Not only did we get to see a dispiriting offensive performance that exposed the core of this lineup under the bright lights for the umpteenth consecutive time. But due to Dave Roberts deciding to give the Phillies the biggest gift of the postseason (there will not be a bigger one all month, I promise) by trotting Blake Treinen out there for the ninth inning, we now also get to second-guess the manager for a disastrous late decision and play the what-if game.

A total blowout and blown golden opportunity at the same time. Hard to believe, Harry. Thank you to Dave Roberts for maximizing the pain, I guess.

But let’s start with the pathetic Phillies’ bats. The Dodgers have incredible star-power at the top of the order, no question about that. If the Phillies just got out-slugged by the Dodgers’ boppers, that would certainly be frustrating… but much less frustrating than how they are actually losing.

Through two games, the Dodgers’ top-four of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman are 7-32 with two walks and two extra-base hits (a homer and double). Those are tenable numbers for the Phillies pitching staff, which has executed well against Ohtani and Betts in particular. You can work with those numbers. But you know what is not tenable? Know what you cannot work with? This.

Blake Snell, the Dodgers’ starter for Game 2, was pretty awesome for most of his six shutout innings. Nasty pitches, mostly on the outer edges of the zone. But like Shohei Ohtani in Game 1, Snell threw Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber some hittable pitches in the sixth inning that they just flat-out missed. And then Harper got himself out, flailing at two pitches out of the zone in a huge spot. Schwarber got fanned by Emmet Sheehan in the eighth inning, getting beat by the fastball. Harper flied out to center.

If your stars do not show up in October, you go home. For the second straight season, the Phillies’ stars have not showed up. And as a result, there is nothing less trustworthy than this Phillies offense in the postseason. Here is how many runs the Phillies have scored in their last eight playoff games: 1, 2, 2, 7, 2, 1, 3, 3. Take out that one Mets win, and it’s two per night in their seven losses. And that last 3 probably is a 1 if Roberts makes the no-brainer decision that an American Legion manager would know to do and brings Roki Sasaki out to start the ninth inning.

The Phillies’ starting pitching has been good enough in this series. Jesús Luzardo was incredible last night, so good that every kid in the Delaware Valley is currently trying to get their hands on some sweet rec specs. Luzardo retired 17 straight batters in a row at one point in Game 2, reminiscent of the September game against the Mets when he sent down 22 straight. The Coaster is in a great spot.

But to begin the seventh inning, with the score 0-0 because the Phillies’ offense is so impotent, Luzardo gave up two base hits: A single to Hernandez and bloop double to Freeman. The horror. He left the game at 82 pitches with the score still 0-0, and the next thing you knew, it was 4-0. The Phillies’ bullpen has a 7.11 ERA this postseason, which is actually an improvement on last year’s 11.32 number. Hard to win when your relievers cannot get anyone out.

Instead of electing to leave Luzardo in, Rob Thomson pulled him right after Freeman’s double. So, who does he trot out?

Despite the fact that the Phillies got 6.2 and 7 innings respectively from their starters (legitimate length!), here was the first move to the bullpen each night:

My guess is that Rob Thomson is not 100 percent responsible for every in-game decision that the Phillies make. He has a huge coaching staff and organization behind him. But regardless of the thought process, I just did not love either decision in the moment. Kerkering pitched pretty well, and might have escaped unscathed if the Phillies made one defensive play, but he did not put up another zero.

And speaking of decisions I did not love…

When you get three consecutive hits, put the winning run in scoring position, and have the chance to give the other team an out, you just gotta do it.

Being a manager is tough. If Bryson Stott struck out and the Phillies lost the game, there would absolutely have been calls about why he did not bunt. But I also think the context matters a great deal here. And the context did not support a bunt...

Topper played for the tie, decided to give the Dodgers’ stinky bullpen an out… and Max Muncy made a great play to give Los Angeles the best of both worlds. The epitome of brutality. Muncy and Mookie Betts’ wheel play provided an easy contrast with Trea Turner’s costly inaccurate throw a few innings early. I really wish Thomson had just let Stott hit. I think Stott would have grinded out an at-bat, and maybe hooked a ball in the hole while he was at it.

Part of the bummer here is that the Phillies have seen pitchers far lesser than Ohtani and Snell shut them down (Brandon Pfaadt, Jose Quintana). We have seen other relievers blow up (Craig Kimbrel, Jeff Hoffman). We have seen Thomson push the wrong button before. Outside of the starting pitching, Games 1 and 2 were a comprehensive organizational failure for the Phillies.

I do not mean to make this newsletter an obit of the entire era — The Phillies are not out of the postseason yet, although odds are that the Dodgers are not coming back to Philly with Aaron Nola on the mound — but it’s hard not to look at how much things have changed in recent years. When the Phillies first entered the postseason, they were risers. Their stars bopped homers, their relievers threw gas and got outs, Thomson pressed the right buttons. And as a result, it was really hard to win in Citizens Bank Park in October.

Now, none of those things are true. The Phillies are 1-5 in their last six playoff games in CBP, an unthinkable development. Despite mostly figuring out the regular season, these Phillies are postseason droppers. The team you want to play. The drop in their postseason form is whiplash-inducing.

And it all started with that Diamondbacks series.

No games today, as the Phils travel to L.A. and the Eagles prep for the Giants on the short week.

Your tentative Tuesday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
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