WASHINGTON — At about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, in the 157th game of the season, with a playoff spot in sight, against the worst team in the league, a backup infielder walked to the mound to get the final out of the eighth inning for the Phillies.
Wild-card fever?
More like a fever dream.
But life moves pretty fast, especially in the last leg of a baseball playoff chase. So, a few minutes past 8 p.m., after the swooning Phillies absorbed a 13-4 thumping in the opener of a day-night doubleheader and slid into a tie for the final National League wild card, Kyle Schwarber circled the bases for their fifth home run of an 8-2 rout of the Washington Nationals.
Who knows what Sunday will bring? Besides more rain, of course.
“All year, I’ve said that they’re resilient and they come back and they fight,” Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson said between games. “And they do.”
OK, so here’s where things stand: With four games left, the Phillies have a one game lead over the Brewers after Milwaukee's 4-3 loss to the Marlins Saturday. But the Phillies also own a tiebreaker over the Brewers by virtue of winning the season series.
It didn’t have to be this difficult. The Phillies had a 4 1/2-game lead over the Brewers with 20 games remaining and a 96.3% chance of making the playoffs on Sept. 14, according to Fangraphs. Then they lost 11 of 16 games to turn it into almost a dead heat in the season’s waning days.
A teetering Jenga tower would seem less precarious.
The weather is a factor now, too. The teams were scheduled to play a doubleheader Friday, but the nightcap got washed out. The teams squeezed in two games Saturday, but Sunday’s forecast is ominous.
If the Phillies and Nationals are unable to complete their series, they may have to convene in Washington on Thursday, one day after the end of the regular season and one day before Game 1 of the best-of-three wild-card round.
File the doubleheader-opening blowout, then, among the Phillies’ costliest losses of the season. It was one of their more humiliating, too.
Kyle Gibson gave up seven runs in six innings, including homers to Luke Voit and Joey Meneses. But the defense did him no favors. In particular, third baseman Alec Bohm tried to backhand Meneses’ shot down the line and whiffed, turning it into a three-run double.
“Usually, he’s going to make that play,” Thomson said. “He just got a bad read off a changeup, hook ball. He just got a late break on it. He should’ve knocked it down if he could.”
Considering the stakes, it felt like the sort of mistake that happens to players who are pressing. The Phillies have made those mistakes in abundance over the last few weeks and years.
“They want to win games and get in. That’s not panic to me,” Thomson said. “I don’t sense panic. I sense a group that really wants to get in the playoffs.”
The Phillies sure have a funny way of showing it.
It helped to face Nationals right-hander Tommy Romero in the nightcap. Making his fourth major league appearance and second start, Romero set a Nationals record by allowing five homers. Schwarber set the tone by hitting the second pitch of the game into the second deck in right field.
Bohm, Brandon Marsh, and Matt Vierling went deep in the third inning to build a 6-0 lead before Schwarber hit his league-leading 44th homer in the fourth, surpassing Chuck Klein in 1929 for the most homers in a season by a Phillies outfielder.
The Phillies also got a superb spot start from Noah Syndergaard, who returned to the rotation and blanked the Nationals for 5 2/3 innings.
So, no, all wasn’t lost when Nick Maton went to the mound with a nine-run deficit in the first game. But the Phillies better hope they don’t sink worse than that over the next four games.
“When it’s late and when we control our own destiny, it’s obviously frustrating,” Gibson said. “But, still, if we win the games that we’re supposed to win, we control our own destiny.
“If we can get on a roll here and get back to being just a little bit more consistent and being the team we know we are, we still like our chances.”
Risky business
With one out in the first inning of Game 1, Bryce Harper communicated with Schwarber to orchestrate a double steal that led to a run.
Harper took off from first base to draw a throw from catcher Riley Adams. When Adams threw to second, Schwarber dashed home and beat a throw back to the plate.
It worked. But it was risky, and Thomson didn’t sound thrilled.
“I trust them,” Thomson said. “But we’ll talk about it.”
Gibson keeps struggling
After allowing homers to four consecutive batters on July 2, Gibson had a 2.80 ERA and gave up a total of four homers in his next nine starts. In six starts since then, he had a 9.73 ERA and allowed seven homers.
In time, maybe Gibson will have answers for what went wrong. For now, he’s stumped.
“I don’t think the pitching coaches [know] either,” said Gibson, who will be a free agent after the season. “I’ve sat and talked with [director of pitching Brian] Kaplan and [pitching coach] Caleb Cotham, the catchers, everybody.
“It’s been a frustrating month, I think, for just about every one of my starts. I don’t know why. That’s been probably the most frustrating thing, sitting there and taking those deep dives and just coming up empty.”
