PHILADELPHIA – After losing the first two games of the National League Championship Series to the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, the D-backs are headed home. But they cannot rely on a mere change of location to be a panacea.
While they struggled to lose Game 1 on Monday night, things were much different on Tuesday as the D-Backs played sloppy baseball and lost 10-0.
“Look, we could play on the moon,” D-Backs manager Torey Lovullo said afterward. “Everyone talks about coming into this environment and I don’t care. We have to play better baseball. Everyone has to get better. You can start with the manager and then work your way up to the entire team. We gotta play Diamondback baseball. What we observed out there was not something we had done in a long time. So we have to regroup. We need to regroup the troops and find a way to make this happen.”
Arizona starter Merrill Kelly did his best to keep the D-backs in the game, allowing two solo home runs in the first three innings.
But that two-run deficit felt like much more because the D-Backs offense couldn’t get going against Aaron Nola, who pitched six shutout innings after Zack Wheeler’s strong performance in Game 1.
“They’re doing a really good job,” D-Backs first baseman Christian Walker said of the Phillies’ co-aces. “Everything has two sides. These are really top-class guys. When they are carried out, it makes our work difficult. It’s not an excuse. We need to empower ourselves to perform better and, if you will, achieve our own happiness. Sometimes the other person does their job too.”
Kelly was chased during a four-run sixth inning that began with Kyle Schwarber hitting his second home run of the game and third of the series.
Things spiraled out of control after that, as the Phillies scored another four runs in the seventh inning, an inning that featured an infield popup that fell when no one called for it, and fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. appeared to have forgotten the ball he was throwing caught on the ball was Warning Track – a sacrifice fly by Nick Castellanos – was not the third out of the inning.
These are the fundamental errors that drive Lovullo crazy. Combine that with the lack of offensive production and it adds up to an overwhelming loss.
“Diamondback baseball is about improving your hitting, having mature swings, increasing your pitch count, catching pop-ups and learning the baseball,” Lovullo said. “You know, pitching and defense go hand in hand, and we find a way to score five runs or more and win a baseball game by just being a really smart and stubborn baseball team in all areas.”
The D-Backs return home where they expect a sellout crowd, but history is not kind to teams that fall 0-2 in best-of-seven series.
Teams that have a 2-0 lead in all best-of-seven postseason series have won that series 75 of 89 times. Only two teams have faced this situation in the last 26 years – the Dodgers in 2020 against the Braves in the NLCS and the Red Sox in 2004 against the Yankees in the ALCS.
“I have to get the next one,” D-backs outfielder Corbin Carroll said. “You know, at this point it’s 0-2. I have to focus on the next thing. We are happy to be in front of our fans. I said it during the Dodgers series when we arrived in Arizona and I’ll say it again: Being able to play playoff baseball in front of our home crowd is special.”
The D-Backs will have to find a way to win four of the next five games to beat a Phillies team that went to the World Series last year and is currently playing with a lot of confidence.
“I mean, you can’t really put it together any better than the way the last two games have gone for us,” Phillies catcher JT Realmuto said. “We threw the ball really well. We played phenomenal defense. We also hit the ball well. However, this series is far from over. That’s a really good ball club over there, we have to go to their stadium and play now.”