From collapse to clinch, Phillies survive ‘living hell’ of last week win final NL wild card, Face Atlanta Tuesday

By DAN GELSTON AP Sports Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Kyle Schwarber belly-flopped more than he actually slid headfirst into second base and popped up with his uniform smudged in dirt. He punched his right fist in the air and shouted something in exhilaration toward a fired-up Phillies dugout.

Schwarber delivered with a clutch two-run double, yes. He also showed the fire, the fight that vanished from the Phillies during a treacherous week that sent them from the brink of a wild-card clinch to the edge — and yes, the bottom was crumbling — of an all-time franchise collapse.

His slide had Phillies fans roaring from their feet — perhaps more than a few who wore brown paper bags over their heads a night earlier — and instantly all felt right on a soggy day inside Citizens Bank Park.

Zack Wheeler pitched a gem against Tampa Bay on Sunday and untangled a few thousand knots inside the stomachs of Phillies fans, and even from those inside a mostly solemn clubhouse. The Phillies survived their perilous five-day scare and are indeed headed to the playoffs for the fifth straight season after beating the Rays 7-3 to clinch the final NL wild-card berth.

“We didn’t play the best baseball we could in September,” slugger Bryce Harper said. “Should we have clinched two weeks ago? Probably, right? But we didn’t. We clinched today.”

Jhoan Duran struck out Nick Fortes to seal it. Duran pounded his mitt and was greeted by teammates for a fairly muted celebration on the field.

The Phillies got more rowdy inside the clubhouse and sprayed cheap beer and bubbly as bottle caps floated in booze-soaked puddles on the carpet while Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” was cranked to 11.

Philadelphia did indeed survive a freefall that coincided with the Arizona Diamondbacks getting hot over the final week of the season. The Phillies’ slam dunk of a playoff spot morphed into something much more tenuous.

Interim manager Don Mattingly said ahead of Wednesday’s game — the first day the team could clinch — that, yes, Philadelphia would wait until midnight if needed to pop the bubbly if it beat Milwaukee and the Diamondbacks lost a time zone away to Colorado.

The Phillies lost that one. Then came three more defeats, capped by a 12-1 embarrassment on Saturday against the AL East champion Rays.

Mattingly’s presumed wait of a few hours to celebrate was not complete until 5:19 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, Sept. 27.

Phillies scored only three runs during their four-game losing streak. They needed an unearned run on Saturday to snap a 21-inning scoreless streak.

Schwarber’s double in the second inning made it 4-0, and that all but erased the significance of the Diamondbacks’ outcome in San Diego. Philadelphia entered the day needing a win or an Arizona loss to make the playoffs.

J.T. Realmuto slogged through 34 straight hitless at-bats. He also ripped an RBI double in the second inning.

Bryson Stott batted cleanup for only the seventh time in his career. He also hit an RBI double that scored Schwarber in the first inning.

Harper lined a solo shot into the first row of the right-field seats, and Edmundo Sosa added a two-run homer for a 7-1 lead in the seventh.

Slumps were busted. Losing streaks were obliterated. Corks were popped.

“It was kind of a living hell in slow motion,” Phillies managing partner and CEO John Middleton said of the final week.

Wheeler allowed one run and threw 97 pitches over six innings to earn his 14th win of the season on a rainy day that stirred memories of the 2008 World Series between the same teams.

The Phillies, though, likely took a loss by pushing the clincher to the 162nd game. With Game 1 in the best-of-three Wild Card Series set to start Tuesday in Atlanta, the Phillies will almost surely have to beat the Braves without a start from Wheeler.

The Phillies’ rotation has been a strength this season, and Jesús Luzardo and Cristopher Sánchez are in play for Games 1 and 2. Andrew Painter or Aaron Nola could make a Game 3 start, if necessary.

Mattingly had goggles wrapped around his backward cap and laughed when he said it was “too early” to announce a Game 1 starter.

NL East champion Atlanta won the season series 9-4 and finished six games ahead of second-place Philadelphia.

The Phillies were 9-19 when they fired popular manager Rob Thomson in April after he led the Phillies to four straight playoff appearances, including the 2022 World Series, and consecutive NL East titles.

Mattingly, hired in the offseason as bench coach, is back in the playoffs a season after he was on the staff of a Toronto team that lost the World Series in seven games to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’s tasked with leading the franchise to its first championship since 2008, the second year of a five-year playoff stretch for the Phillies.

That was a record, until this year’s team matched it.

“You wouldn’t think that, right, with everybody’s opinion of us,” Harper said. “I think as a team, as a group, pretty cool. The job’s not done, the job’s not finished. We’ve never finished the job before.”

The Phillies did all they could to try and blow their lead.

Philadelphia had a 6 1/2-game lead over Arizona for the third NL wild card on Sept. 1 before going into a tailspin that spurred painful memories of the 1964 season. Those Phillies lost 10 straight games to blow a 6 1/2-game lead and the NL pennant with 12 games left.

This year’s team will be able to raise a playoff flag on opening day (whenever that is in 2027).

The Phillies also must try and prove their late-September meltdown was nothing but a blip in a long and successful October.

That’s a problem to start to solve on Monday.

On Sunday, it was hugs and high-fives and a collective exhale that more playoffs were on the horizon.

“We know our team,” Schwarber said. “We know that we have a lot of experience. We’ve got talent. When we’re playing our game, and we’re executing what we need to do, we’re a really hard team to beat.”