PHILADELPHIA -- First and foremost, John Middleton is a Phillies fan.

So, yes, the Phillies' managing partner and CEO said the past month has been miserable for him, too. The Phillies played at a 106-win clip through mid-July, then entered a month-long tailspin that had them playing alongside the worst teams in baseball.

“The first week was bad,” Middleton said Friday. “But that happens. The second week was worse. But that happens. By the time it got to the third and fourth week, it was like, OK, stop.”

Perhaps it has stopped. Following a team meeting Wednesday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies won four of their next five games, and hope to maintain that momentum when they open a six-game road trip in Atlanta on Tuesday.

The Phillies have 38 games to play before the postseason. FanGraphs gives them a 99.5 percent chance to make the postseason. A postseason berth would have been thrilling two or three years ago, but 2024 isn’t about the postseason.

It’s about a World Series championship.

“It’s time to shake off the cobwebs and start playing like it’s May or June,” Middleton said. “The Rangers and Diamondbacks had time to recover [from midseason struggles in 2023] and got hot. Hopefully, we will too. But you can’t just assume that’s going to happen. You have to make it happen.

“I don’t think you can just sit there and say, ‘Oh, well this has happened and therefore we’ll turn it around.’ I don't think you can be that passive. I think you have to be pushing. And pushing people to rethink what they’ve been doing. That’s coaches and that’s players. Everybody has to step back and say, ‘What are we doing wrong? Why is a team that was winning at a .700 clip for 3 1/2 months now playing at a .325 clip for the last five weeks?’

“The good news is Dave [Dombrowski’s] been through a lot of wars. He’s seen not just his teams but other teams like the Diamondbacks and Rangers go through these periods. He's a smart guy. He has high standards. He just doesn’t accept people who don’t do their jobs well. So he’s pushing everybody. That’s what needs to happen.”

The Phillies need to get hot and lucky in October, maddening truths about postseason baseball as the most talented regular-season teams are far from sure things to win.

Former Phillies general manager Pat Gillick said exactly that during his first day on the job in December 2005. Middleton, Gillick and late president David Montgomery were having lunch in the executive dining room, when Gillick asked Middleton if he had any questions. Middleton asked Gillick, who won two World Series with the Blue Jays in 1992 and ‘93, what it takes to win a championship.

“Luck,” Gillick said.

The answer surprised Middleton.

“Well, I get lucky in a lot of phases in my life,” he said. “I don't know exactly how you think luck plays in a World Series title.”

“Well, John,” Gillick said. “Good organizations consistently produce good teams that compete for and often get in the playoffs. But the difference between getting in the playoffs and winning the World Series is luck. Because, to win the World Series, you have to have 25 healthy guys who are playing well at precisely the right moment in time. You can look at almost every season and there is a team that if the season stopped in July and they had the World Series, a different team would win the World Series than the team that ultimately won it.’

The Phillies got hot in 2008. They went cold in the 2023 NLCS.

“The moments when all the stars align ... you have to get the breaks,” Middleton said. “The ball that bounces two inches foul and prevents two or three runs from scoring, if it falls two inches fair, you have a different outcome. You have bad calls. You have to have the right calls. Health. Players playing well. It's so fragile. But it comes together in an instant.”

These past five games have settled Middleton. It has helped that this past weekend was Wall of Fame and Alumni weekend, which included him surprising the Phillies' Wall of Famers with “Wall of Fame” rings, which will now be a tradition moving forward.

Middleton wears his heart on his sleeve. He is known for being emotional in his suite at Citizens Bank Park.

He does not hide from this.

“That's largely my personality,” he said.

But that’s because he feels a responsibility to Phillies fans.

“This is why it’s important to go out and sign people like Bryce Harper, why you pay Zack Wheeler $40-plus million a year for three years,” Middleton said. “It’s because this is how the fans react. It’s important to them. They appreciate it. They recognize it. I love that. I have other owners who look at me and say, ‘We don’t get this.’ … It’s remarkable how special this city is as a fan base.

“It’s why I keep telling everybody, it may be a privately-held business that we own, but it’s not a private organization. It’s a very public organization. It’s a stewardship. We have an obligation. We are accountable to the fans and to the city. If you don’t approach it that way, you shouldn’t be an owner in my opinion.”