By Jayson Stark / The Athletic
An October classic was unfolding around them.
Maybe you were wondering: What is it like to play in a game like Philadelphia Phillies 7, New York Mets 6? After host Philadelphia evened this National League Division Series at a win apiece Sunday, I asked a bunch of Phillies that very question.
“Both teams went punch for punch,” said first baseman Bryce Harper, who hit a sixth-inning home run off the batter’s eye in center field that seemed to change everything about this game and this series. “Rocky would have been proud, that never-die mentality. Just a great game.”
Outfielder Kyle Schwarber said: “That’s one of the best games I’ve ever played in. That’s the beautiful thing about this game, and that’s why this game is awesome.”
Pitcher Matt Strahm, his heart still thumping even after serving up Mark Vientos’ game-tying home run in the ninth, said: “It’s unbelievable. Every kid in Philly tomorrow is going to pretend to be Bryce Harper or Nick Castellanos, batting in the bottom of the ninth.”
Outfielder Brandon Marsh said: “This is why I started playing baseball when I was 3 — for today, for stuff like this. It means the world to us as players, to be able to play in these games and experience moments like this.”
What’s the best way to review those moments before turning our attention to Games 3 and 4 in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday? Let’s put them in perspective.
The walk-off
Castellanos lived another October dream. He is still trying to squash the memory of his 0-for-23 funk to end last year’s postseason. A cool way to do that? Crush a game-tying home run in the sixth inning, then finish an electrifying day with a walk-off single in the ninth.
“That,” said his manager, Rob Thomson, “was a big night for him tonight.”
So, where does it fit in the annals of Phillies postseason walk-offs?
It was their first walk-off hit in any postseason game since Game 4 of the 2009 NL Championship Series. With two outs in the ninth, Jimmy Rollins hit a game-ending double up the right-center-field gap off Los Angeles Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton.
It was just the fifth walk-off in Phillies postseason history, which dates to 1915.
The back-to-backers
It was the bottom of the sixth inning, the Mets were ahead 3-0 and the fans at Citizens Bank Park were not having the time of their lives. There were two outs and nobody on. And of the 19 Phillies who had been up, only three had gotten a hit.
These people had seen this movie before, in Games 6 and 7 of the NLCS last October against the Arizona Diamondbacks. And this was one sequel they did not want.
But the beauty of these baseball games, as the October shadows fall, is that one swing can turn everything upside-down.
After a Trea Turner single, Harper splattered a breathtaking two-run home run off the center of the ivy-covered batter’s eye in center field. And nothing about this game was the same again.
Two pitches later, Castellanos fired off a majestic home run of his own. This score was tied. The ballpark rattled. Suddenly, it felt like this day had a chance to become something special.
They were the sixth back-to-back homers in Phillies postseason history, but it was the first time they had gone back to back to tie a game or give themselves a lead.
Harper. Historic.
Here’s some stuff you should know about Harper, Philadelphia’s Mr. October.
He has hit 12 postseason home runs as a Phillie, all since 2022. That’s tied for the most by anyone in baseball. The guy he’s tied with? His partner in long-ball crime, Schwarber.
His team has won the last 12 straight postseason games in which he has made a home run trot.
In his 32 postseason games with the Phillies, he has rolled up a .327 batting average, a .727 slugging percentage and a 1.170 on-base plus slugging percentage.
In the history of baseball, only one player has topped that slugging percentage and OPS in his first 32 postseason games with any team. That would be Lou Gehrig, who slugged .756 and had a 1.262 OPS in his first 32 postseason games as a New York Yankee.
More craziness
There was Bryson Stott, who hit a two-run triple in the eighth, off the Mets’ Edwin Díaz, to give the Phillies their first lead of the day. It was the first go-ahead triple by a Phillie in a postseason game since a tiebreaking, two-run triple by Manny Trillo in the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS in Houston.
There was Vientos, who had himself a day: a go-ahead, two-run homer in the third inning and a game-tying two-run homer in the ninth inning (not to mention a first-inning double). He was just the third Met in history to hit two home runs in the same postseason game that either tied the score or put the Mets ahead. The others: Edgardo Alfonzo, in Game 1 of the 1999 NLCS (two tiebreaking homers) and Carlos Delgado, in Game 2 of the 2006 NLCS (also two tiebreakers).
And there was Pete Alonso, who hit yet another big home run to right field in this game. Alonso has now hit opposite-field home runs in consecutive games this postseason, which is not a thing any living baseball writer has typed before.
Did you know Alonso has hit 226 regular-season homers as a Met, but he has never hit two in a row to straightaway right field before? How wild and weird is that?
That tidbit eventually turned into just another amazing subplot in this game. But it is one more reminder that when you walk into a ballpark in October, you never know what to expect.
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