ST. LOUIS — About three minutes before the first pitch of Game 1 of the National League wild-card series on Friday, Phillies broadcaster Scott Franzke leaned into his microphone and said it best, as he often does.
“Every golden age has an end, and every great story has to start somewhere.”
The golden age, of course, was in reference to the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that has made eight postseason appearances since 2011. The great story was in reference to the Phillies, a team that has not just missed the postseason for the past 10 seasons, but missed it in soul-crushing fashion.
Until this year. This is year has been different. The Phillies have won games they wouldn’t have won over the past decade. They went 11-14 in September, but made the postseason for the first time since 2011, when they fell to the Cardinals in Philadelphia with their ace on the mound.
The enduring image from that fateful game was Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard, collapsing 30 feet from home plate, as he tore his left achilles tendon while grounding into the final out. Fans threw white towels onto the field. It felt like the beginning of the end.
But Saturday felt like the start of something new. The Phillies could have gone to St. Louis and whimpered against a team that represents their postseason woes. Instead, after they eked out a come-from-behind win in Game 1, they closed out the Cardinals with a 2-0 victory in Game 2 on Saturday night for their first playoff series win since 2010. They will play the Atlanta Braves in the National League Divisional Series beginning on Tuesday.
Aaron Nola, a pitcher once known for not stepping up to the moment, held the Cardinals to just four hits and no runs with one walk and six strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings. In the first postseason outing of his eight-year career, Nola sent his team to the NLDS.
Interim manager Rob Thomson likes to say Nola is a “big game pitcher,” because he is even-keeled. Nola proved Thomson’s words prescient on Saturday night. It seemed like every time he ran into any sort of adversity, he bounced back. In the first inning, Lars Nootbaar launched a single to center field, that bobbled in Brandon Marsh’s glove. Marsh was given an error, and Nootbaar ended up on second base with no outs.
He started pounding his chest toward the Cardinals’ dugout. It seemed like a rally could be imminent. But Nola retired the next three batters — Albert Pujols, Paul Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado — to end the inning.
When Nola walked Tommy Edman with one out in the third, he struck out Nootbaar, and induced a groundout from Pujols. When he allowed a single to Juan Yepez in the fifth, he induced a forceout and two groundouts to end the inning.
Nola wasn’t just commanding his pitches. He was trusting his stuff. In this season more than in his previous seven seasons, he has thrown his pitches with more conviction. And you could see that on Saturday night.
Conviction is a good word to describe not just Nola, but the Phillies as a whole this series. A postseason berth was never going to satisfy this team. If they fall behind, 2-0, entering the ninth inning of Game 1, they will score six runs in the ninth. If Bryce Harper goes hitless in Game 1, he will take the first pitch he sees, a 75.9-mph curveball, and launch it 435 feet to the right-field stands.
Alec Bohm, who led the National League in errors at third base last season, will dive over the foul line to rob Arenado of a line drive. Seranthony Domínguez, who had a 10.50 ERA for the month of September, will inherit a runner from Jose Alvarado in the bottom of the eighth, allow a single, and strike out the next two batters to the end the inning.
Zach Eflin, who injured his right knee in late June and was unsure if he’d even be back this season, will allow two hits, but record the save in the ninth to send his team to face the Braves in the NLDS.
We don’t know if the Cardinals’ golden age has come to end. But for the Phillies, it could be just the beginning. And what a story that would be.
