2023 Phillies Post Season Discussion

[Docs]

but the pen, which has been mostly very good, collapsed at the wrong time in game 5.

whose pen? Cause the phillies won that one

[Patchmk88]

I think he meant Game 4. If we lose tonight, that game and Kimbrel are going to be the things people point to as the reason the season came crashing down.

[phillychuck]

For the game tonight the D'Backs are +146 and the Phils are -173. D'backs implied probability is 40.65%, Phils is 63.37%. Correcting for the vig, that gives 63.37/(40.65+63.37) for the Phils' true "Vegas" chance of winning, 60.1%.

No certainty, but a better than even shot. Roll the dice, let's take our shot.

[bkox]

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo is aware that Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo said he’ll retire if the Diamondbacks beat the Phillies in Game 7, and says, ‘I’m looking forward to that.’

— Bob Nightengale ( @BNightengale ) October 24, 2023

[Docs]

I know, that's why I used the winky face emojii

I thought game 3 was a winnable game, and if we could play it again I like our chances. I like our chances even more since we get to replay game 3 at home. Let's go Phillies!

[zambonir]

I really don't think the batting order and "protection" matters that much. I do think it matters in terms of the bullpen game and lefty/righty stuff. And it matters that a hitter as cold as Alec Bohm, who's also not really a power guy to begin with, is batting 4th but it would be hard to argue for Casty there. JT would be the move if you made one I think. Moving Marsh up would also make sense but they have refused to do that all year, they like him as the guy who gets on base for Schwarber too (just too bad Rojas hasn't been able to do that in the post-season).

[bkox]

This fact shocks me.

FYI @JackFritzWIP @JamesSeltzer

Over the last 50 years, only 3 teams have been to the WS more often than the #Phillies .

— schmenkman ( @tgpschmenk ) October 24, 2023

I guess it is interesting that from 1980 to 2022, the Phillies got to the playoffs 10 times (80,81,83, 93, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 22) and made it to the world series 6 of those times.

[bkox]

Zack Wheeler did not throw his typical bullpen side session before tonight's Game 7. He played catch with the relievers. He is very live for tonight. Might be an inning. Maybe more.

— Matt Gelb ( @MattGelb ) October 24, 2023

[zambonir]

Yeah those of us who were born after '64 have only really had the pain passed down to us as an inheritance/through stories, and knowing how many games the franchise had lost historically. We still saw Black Friday and Mitch Williams but we also had the '80 NLCS and Matt Stairs and Bedlam at the Bank. And now.... (crosses fingers)

[zambonir]

I'm hoping we don't see Wheeler because he's simply not needed.

[BostonRoss]

The Phillies are tied with the Braves and Red Sox with six appearances, and if they win tonight will tie the Cardinals with seven. Yankees have 11, Dodgers 8.

[Callison]

Wally World is closed.

Great run by the Phils. The DBs hit in the clutch but the Phils didn't. The DBs hit the Phils relievers, but the Phils couldn't hit theirs.

The series may have turned on game 4, when the Phils' pen disintegrated. Previously, the strongest, most consistent part of the team. They shoulda hadda oughta closed that one. Nola could have shown up for game 6, too.

Congrats to the DBs. They played some great baseball.

[Austinfan]

Those of us who lived through 1964 were scarred for life.

[zambonir]

Welcome, kids

A lot of kid Phillies fans earned their stripes with the team’s loss. Here’s how...

[zambonir]

Lovullo calls the Diamondbacks "a small-market organization" and he's not wrong! They just don't play in one.

'Success is revenge': Diamondbacks relish silencing Phillies to reach World...

[zambonir]

Pretty incredible that Hazen and Lovullo have been running the Dbacks since 2017. Kind of like the Phillies they fell well short of their original competition schedule (after making the playoffs in that first year) and then suddenly delivered, except w/o the massive front office changes.

But also, this:

Less than three weeks after hiring Lovullo, Hazen acquired a centerpiece of his roster. In a trade that ultimately worked out for both sides, the Diamondbacks sent Mitch Haniger, Jean Segura and Zac Curtis to the Mariners for starting pitcher Taijuan Walker and 23-year-old Marte.

That's four guys who played for us!

Building the Diamondbacks: 10 steps that turned Arizona into a postseason...

[MichaelJackSchmidt]

I'm still not a D'Backs believer yet. I think that they just ran into streaky Phillies hitters that were on a down streak. I think the Rangers win in 4 or 5.

[zambonir]

Probably, but they weren't supposed to win any of 'em (or even be in the NLCS). Like the Phillies last year, the final round will probably expose them. But they have the pitching to make a go of it I think.

[EDmuch]

It was a lot more than Dbacks just being lucky. There is an article int he Athletic where so Dback players explained that they had developed a specific strategy for how to pitch to Phillie hitters and use the aggressiveness of our hitters against themselves. It was a lot like we were all assuming: throw a lot of pitchers out of the zone and let our guys chase bad pitches. But they also had a strategy of throwing off speed on what usually would be fastball accounts. They had scouted us and had determined that our hitters were extremely over aggressive on fastball counts. The article also had a quote from DD where he acknowledged that the Dbacks strategy worked a nd that the Phils would have to make adjustments for next year because teams around the league would use that approach against us a lot next year. so it wasn't just that some of our batters were "unlucky", it was that the Dbacks used a specific strategy of making the Phils chase bad pitches.

[Austinfan]

Doesn't surprise me at all, I was complaining about it for months - but the Phillies didn't self-scout?
Maybe some major changes are needed!