The emotions from Thursday night have had a few days. The shock, the anger, the disbelief, the bitter sadness… Maybe for most, the feelings are all numb now. Maybe most have come to grips with the realization that this era of the Phillies has been thrown away along with that baseball that Orion Kerkering sent sailing past J.T. Realmuto at the plate.
But for all, the reason why it got here was the same old story at its very core: The big bats disappeared again.
They flailed at pitches trying to crush the ball, they brought momentum to a halt with a pop-up they got too far under, a groundout they couldn't get around to, or just a straight-up swing and a miss when something was starting to brew. They just couldn't bring themselves to get on base and go from there.
Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and even Trea Turner at the top, it felt like they slipped back into that home run or bust mentality again, especially as the situations piled up where they were falling behind to the Dodgers and badly needed something to break.
They needed the big swing. They needed to be the postseason hero. They needed the moment, and were fishing for it.
But they weren't going to last in October repeatedly trying to hit like that, and they had to have known it after three prior postseasons of taking a step down the ladder. Harrison Bader, who hadn't even been there that long, even called it out right before the NLDS started.
"You can't really play hero ball," Bader said just before Game 1. "I think keeping it super simple, take your single, having a good at-bat, passing the baton, all these little things will ultimately create a favorable result. You'll have your hero moments. Guys will have hero moments. But you're not thinking that going into the at-bat. It's really when the process is so important, and it's kind of why players talk about the process so intensely, because when the noise increases and the pressure of the situation increases, the process in finding that result is what really, kind of, is important.
"I just think that it's just a group of guys that kind of know how to do that, and we've been practicing that and preaching that all year, so now it's just a matter of execution."
But the Phillies' bats never executed, at least not in the top half of the order where they really needed it and aside from that lone Game 3 rout in Los Angeles.
They didn't take their singles. They didn't pass the baton – they fumbled it, if anything. They just wanted the "hero moments" without stacking up all the little things that go into creating them.
They got away from themselves, or maybe just reverted back to who they always were.
Kyle Schwarber struck out eight times in the NLDS.
Outside of Game 3, when the Phillies finally latched on to some offense, Turner went 1-for-12 leading off. He was the NL batting champ for the regular season after having taken over the No. 1 spot in the order from Schwarber with a re-emphasized commitment from the whole club to him finding a way on base to set the table.
He did it for 141 games. Then the schedule shifted into the playoffs, and it all stopped.
Schwarber went 1-for-12 in Games 1, 2 and 4, only having briefly woken up for two homers in the Game 3 that kept the year alive for just one more day. In all fairness, opposing pitchers know what Schwarber is about when he steps into the box at this point — 56 homers and hundreds more for his career before say all they need to.
But even for him, take the single, take the walk. It can stack up. Bryce Harper is waiting on-deck, but even so, that feeds further into the issue.
Harper went 1-for-12 outside of Game 3, too, and what he was trying to do at the plate felt like the most painfully obvious of all.
Every swinging strike had all the power he had behind it as he whiffed over top of the ball.
He was fishing for the moment. Everyone was. They came up empty.
Trea Turner struggled to get anything started for the Phillies through the NLDS.
Shohei Ohtani was good for the Dodgers on the mound, but not unhittable. Same goes for Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and definitely that L.A. bullpen, along with some of the decision-making from manager Dave Roberts, who sure did try to hand the Phillies a couple of games with who he chose to roll out before eventually defaulting to repurposed closer Rōki Sasaki.
The Phillies just couldn't bring themselves to take what was there and work with it. They didn't do the little things.
Now they're sitting at home watching with everyone else, with the lingering dread of not knowing who will be coming back next spring following them into a winter where it feels like something has to change for the club.
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The moments do get remembered – "Bedlam at the Bank," the Orlando Arcia staredowns, the bat spikes, the inside-the-park home runs, and so on.
But they get built up to, they get earned, and they're not what truly wins a World Series. Slapping singles with a runner 90 feet from home do.
The 2025 Phillies and their biggest stars, though, they didn't bother with that. They couldn't just take the single or keep it simple, even when someone in the room was there saying exactly what they had to do out loud.
They were boom or bust again. It bit them again. And it's back to the same old story… again.
It's just that now no one knows what happens next.
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