A ninth inning Stubbs won't forget

This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

This time felt way better.

The last time Garrett Stubbs played in the postseason, he was a member of the Astros. He caught the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 2021 World Series, which sounds cool, except Houston was losing to Atlanta, 7-0, and its season was coming to an end. So, when Phillies manager Rob Thomson told Stubbs to catch the ninth inning of Game 2 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park, he couldn’t have been more excited.

“I was screaming throughout the dugout, ‘Hey, guys! I’m going to go out and play!’” Stubbs said. “We were winning 10-0. We could have been losing 10-0 when I went out there, you know?”

Stubbs has had one of the best seats in the house the past two postseasons, but he had not touched the field until Tuesday. The Phillies won the 2022 NL pennant before losing in six games to the Astros in the World Series. J.T Realmuto caught all 150 innings. There is an excellent chance that Realmuto catches every inning the rest of this postseason. He is set to start Game 3 of the NLCS at 5:07 p.m. ET on Thursday at Chase Field.

So Stubbs savored his opportunity to play Tuesday.

“They got on their feet with two outs,” Stubbs said about the crowd. “They’re wanting the game to end. They know a win is coming. So, yeah, it’s pretty cool. Because in the regular season you don’t really get that same exact vibe unless it’s a tight game.

“It was so fun. Also, catching [Orion] Kerkering is awesome, and he struck out the side -- depending on your definition of striking out the side. I still wanted the shutout. It’s really hard to do. So, Kerkering went out there and shut it down to get the shutout. That was pretty sweet. No matter what the score is there’s a goal. You don’t want the pitcher to let up any runs just because you don’t want his numbers to get skewed. But in that particular situation it was, ‘I want to get the shutout.’”

Stubbs might be the most highly regarded, well-liked, wildly popular bench player in Phillies memory. He is the clubhouse DJ. Nobody seems to have more fun in champagne-clinching celebrations than him. It explained why fans were thrilled to see him get in Game 2. It explained why reporters asked him about the experience following Wednesday’s workout at Chase Field.

“He said he was a little sore today, so he wasn't sure if he could play tomorrow,” Thomson joked. “He was great, though. I felt bad last year that we went the entire postseason -- he was the only guy that didn't play, and I felt bad because he is such a big part of our clubhouse. He's such a great team guy that I just felt awful, and it took me a while to get over it really.”

Stubbs has had a tremendous attitude about the whole thing. He has joked previously about his odds of getting an at-bat in the postseason. (He said again Wednesday he doesn’t think he’ll get one.) After Game 3 of the NL Division Series against Atlanta, Thomson walked through the clubhouse to tell players about game times. If the Dodgers had beaten the D-backs, the Phillies would play Game 4 the next day at 5:07 p.m. ET. With a D-backs sweep, the Phillies would play at 8:07 p.m.

“Stubby, I want to talk to you about tomorrow night,” Thomson said.

“Am I playing?” Stubbs said.

Thomson smiled. Stubbs smiled.

Stubbs will be watching Game 3 from the Phillies dugout. He will be doing the team’s base-hit celebration and he will be smacking himself on the butt like a jockey whenever a Phillies player homers.

Stubbs calls it “riding the pony.”

“It didn’t come from anywhere,” he said. “I did it after Casty [Nick Castellanos] hit his home run in [Game 3 of the NLDS] and it felt really good. So I was like, OK, I’m doing it again. Then he hits another homer and Harp [Bryce Harper] hits a homer so I just kept doing it because we kept scoring and it was fun to do. And then [Kyle] Schwarber started doing it with me. It just felt like a fun celebration. We’re going to roll with it.”