Phillies' World-Series-or-bust season ends with NLDS heartbreak

NEW YORK -- Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Bryson Stott and Weston Wilson gathered at a table in the middle of the visitors’ clubhouse on Wednesday night at Citi Field.

J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos sat a few feet away in the corner.

Across from them, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Taijuan Walker huddled together.

The Phillies spent the minutes following their 4-1 loss to the Mets in Game 4 of the National League Division Series trying to process how a season that started with World Series championship expectations ended so stunningly in Queens. A few sipped beers as they sat with their thoughts. Nobody said much.

“Just feel like you failed,” Turner said. “I think we had a fun season, we made some good memories and whatnot, but when it comes to winning a World Series, it feels like kind of a failure.”

The Phillies reached Game 6 of the 2022 World Series before losing to the Astros in Houston. They reached Game 7 of the '23 NL Championship Series before losing to the Diamondbacks at Citizens Bank Park.

Then, Philadelphia brought back almost everybody for another shot at the title.

The players loved the idea. They believed they already had a World Series championship-caliber roster. It looked like a stroke of genius, too. When the Phils beat the Mets in London on June 8, they improved to 45-19, putting them on a 114-win pace.

“Well, it's not how you start, it’s how you finish,” Castellanos said. “And we started fantastic. We were the best team in baseball in the first half. Everybody in baseball and all the fans are saying, 'This is our year. This is our year. This is our year.' I don't know if expectations put on the pressure. I don't know. I can speculate, but one thing I know is that we didn't cross the finish line.”

Including the NLDS, the Phillies went 51-51 the rest of the way.

“Yeah, didn’t finish the job,” Bryce Harper said.

The Phillies scored 12 runs in four games against the Mets in the NLDS. They batted .186 with a .597 OPS. They struck out 38 times. They walked 16 times.

The offense was a concern entering the season because it fell apart in the final five games of the 2023 NLCS. Everybody worried that it would happen again.

It did.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Schwarber said. “It [bleeping] hurts. It’s not a good feeling. It’s a weird feeling, right? It just felt like an interesting series, where -- like I said, give credit to them because they did a great job -- but also it just felt like it was just hard to get something going. That was kind of the battle where it was trying to get that inning going. We got it in Game 2, and it just felt like we couldn’t get that big inning going.”

The bullpen had been a steady strength this year, but it posted an 11.37 ERA in the series. It was the fifth-highest ERA by any bullpen in any series in postseason history (minimum 10 innings), and the highest since Cleveland's 11.70 bullpen ERA in the 2018 American League Division Series.

Phillies right-hander Jeff Hoffman had been one of the team’s best stories from the past two years, resurrecting his career and making his first All-Star team in July. In Game 4, Hoffman warmed up in the second, third and fifth innings as starter Ranger Suárez got into trouble.

Hoffman worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the fifth. He stayed in for the sixth and loaded the bases with no outs, hitting a batter and throwing two wild pitches. Carlos Estévez, who was acquired from the Angels in July to be the Phillies' closer, replaced Hoffman with one out, the bases still loaded and Philadelphia clinging to a 1-0 lead.

“I came over for situations like that,” Estévez said.

He threw a 2-1 fastball over the plate to Francisco Lindor, who crushed a back-breaking grand slam to right-center field.

Those could have been Hoffman and Estévez’s final pitches for the Phillies. Both will be free agents.

Hoffman’s eyes welled up as he thought about his future. He hopes to stay.

“Yeah, that’s all I want,” Hoffman said. “But it’s hard to think about right now.”

He choked up when he was asked what hits him the most about his time in Philly.

“Just the people,” Hoffman said.

The Phillies will make changes in the offseason. Issues need to be addressed. They know it. But the core of the team will mostly remain intact. It currently includes Harper, Turner, Schwarber, Castellanos, Realmuto, Wheeler, Nola, Cristopher Sánchez and more.

“Obviously, it’s getting shorter, right?” Harper said about the window to win with this group. “I think Shwarbs has one more [year remaining on his contract]. I think JT has one more. But I think at the same time, you don’t pay Wheels and Noles [last offseason] if you don't think you're gonna be competitive for the next five years.”

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“I don’t see us going backwards,” manager Rob Thomson said.

The Phillies could run it back again but with a few tweaks to give them a better chance to win in the postseason.

“[Bleep] the tweak, we can do it,” Matt Strahm said.

Why?

“The talent in this room,” Strahm said. “I mean, baseball is a game of hot streaks. It’s kind of like basketball where it’s a game of runs, but over 162 and into the playoffs and all that. And when you get hot, you get hot. Unfortunately, we ran into a [bleeping] flaming ball.”