The Phillies will show you a light, just as quickly put it out, then spark another, only to repeat what's been the same frustrating cycle ever since the Dodgers series and that 7-2 start.
For now, the light's on.
The Phillies beat the Cubs, 3-1, after 10 innings in Wrigleyville on Sunday night, taking two of three for the series to put them at 15-13 overall and to keep afloat in the early NL East picture coming back home to play Washington this week.
Aaron Nola, in dire need of a win, put together what was easily his best performance of the season so far, with 7.0 innings pitched, just a run and three hits allowed, and six strikeouts thrown on the back of an efficiently managed and well-placed 99 pitches (73 of them for strikes) and the most-relaxed double play turn you'll ever see from Nick Castellanos to close out the seventh. Nola got the no-decision, though.
Bryson Stott rolled a pitch to the wall down the right-field line and stretched a triple out of it in the third, then was brought home on a Trea Turner base hit right after to tie the game, 1-1, but that was also it on Jameson Taillon's end, who held the Phillies to just five hits himself through seven as they fell back right back into their runners-in-scoring-position rut.
The day before, they went on a 10-run and 7-for-13 outburst after hitting a what felt like a low in Friday's 4-0 shutout loss, when they went 0-for-7 and stranded 10 runners in what was their fifth straight defeat.
On Sunday night, they were 1-for-4 with three runners stranded through eight, trapping themselves into routine grounders the brighter the primetime lights got, which was a dangerous scenario for the Phils to be in given how unstable their bullpen has been.
But Orion Kerkering and José Alvarado kept out of trouble and held the line with a scoreless inning each, then in the tenth, the Phillies worked Chicago reliever Julian Merryweather into consecutive bases-loaded jams that they flipped into a 3-1 lead on an Alec Bohm sac fly and a grounder to third by Turner that he beat the throw on – albeit, with a poorly executed bunt from Johan Rojas stuffed in between and then a Caleb Thielbar strikeout of Bryce Harper that left the chance to do more damage on the table.
Jordan Romano, with every fan's bated breath, was able to close out with the save right after to get the Phillies out of Chicago and on the way back to South Philadelphia.
The light's on, for now. But the Phillies aren't anywhere near the end of the tunnel.
The problems with runners in scoring position are still there until steadily proven otherwise, Nola finally put together a stellar night but is on the uphill climb now to show that this outing was truly a corner turned, and the Phillies overall need to work their way up from what's been an 8-11 run since the L.A. series win, which has often been plagued with long-persisting issues going back years now – and maybe at the worst they've ever been.
It's still April, sure, and there's a lot of baseball left. But these are mostly the same Phillies that fans have watched for the past several years now, complete with the same debilitating tendencies that have led them to take a step down the postseason ladder with each passing October – and all of baseball knows that by now, too, along with how to attack them.
There's still a lot of baseball left, and maybe this is where the 2025 Phillies start to really tick up, because they haven't just yet.
But that said, the 2012 Phillies, after years of postseason runs, had a lot of baseball left, too, up until they didn't and the realization hit that the window was shut.
And there have been days so far where both teams feel eerily similar, but for now, the light for 2025 is still on, and the Nationals are on deck.
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