If that path is more difficult, JT Realmuto is happy to take the hard path.
“Honestly, it’s a little more nerve-wracking when you’re ahead and calling pitches with the lead because you never want to give up that lead,” Realmuto said after the Phillies took a five-run lead and held on to the Diamondbacks, 5- 3, in Game 1 of the NLCS.
“Our pitchers do a good job in those situations.”
The Phillies are not showing any nervousness at the moment. They looked like the better prepared, more confident and more talented team in all three rounds.
The Phils have played 45 innings this postseason. They only finished two of those innings trailing, none of them at home.
They hit three home runs in the first three innings Monday against D-Backs ace Zac Gallen – Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos – and maintained that lead the rest of the way, with Seranthony Dominguez, Jose Alvarado and Craig Kimbrel Outs made huge strides with the tying run on base.
The Phillies pitching staff continues to perform at an extremely high level. With a .186 batting average and three home runs in four games in the NLDS, they maintained the Braves’ best offense in the major leagues. On Monday, Zack Wheeler dominated Arizona for five innings and the back end of the bullpen finished the job after Arizona’s sixth run in two runs.
It must be a difficult task for an opposing team that has to contend with Wheeler’s speed, command and repertoire for six innings before attempting to throw a ball against Dominguez’s 99 mph fastball or Alvarado’s absurd pitch mix place.
Alvarado, in particular, played a crucial role Monday night, bridging the gap from the seventh to ninth inning with four outs on 15 pitches, three of them to Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte and Tommy Pham, the top of the Arizona lineup.
“Tremendous, I’m kind of at a loss for words,” Wheeler said of Alvarado’s performance over the last two seasons, but especially in the playoffs. “He’s a great pitcher, great stuff, great guy. He’s one of my good friends on the team and he’s really fun to watch. He went down (to the minors) last year, fixed some things, came back up and has been unbeatable ever since.”
“He’s a real standout for us,” Realmuto added. “Anytime we get into trouble with a lead — sixth, seventh, eighth, no matter when — he usually comes in to face the toughest part of the lineup in the toughest spot. You can’t say enough about how important he was to us.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson has been more aggressive in his pitching decisions in the playoffs two years in a row, more aggressive than the opposing manager. The depth and nature of his bullpen allows for this. Entering Monday, Wheeler had struck out 15 straight with eight strikeouts, with only one ball leaving the infield early in the sixth inning. But there was a hard contact in the sixth inning. Geraldo Perdomo hit a two-run home run. Marte flew loudly into the deep middle. Wheeler had just 81 pitches after six pitches, but that was it. He did his job, and the Phillies have all those hard-throwing, high-impact relievers for a reason.
“He steps forward,” Thomson said. “His performance was really good tonight, especially at the start of the game. I thought he started to lose a little bit in the fifth and sixth innings, but he hit the ground running early.”
“It’s an order. It’s stuff. It’s power. It is competitive in nature. It’s all. He is complete.”
Wheeler is building a playoff resume that borders on legend. It will stand out even more if the Phillies can win this time. He has a 2.63 ERA in nine playoff starts with the lowest WHIP (0.70) in postseason history among pitchers with at least 50 innings. Mariano Rivera is second on this list.
“It is great. I mean, he’s so fun to watch,” Harper said. “He plays to his strengths. I just enjoy having him as a teammate. Every fifth day we have a chance to win, and whenever you’re able to do that in the postseason, that’s huge.”
“Like I said the other day, ace one and ace two (Aaron Nola), just because of the way they both throw, the way they approach it. It’s a pretty similar approach to how they behave in the clubhouse before games and what they do. It’s really cool to see it working for Wheels and it just doesn’t surprise me either.”
Wheeler threw 98-99 mph in the first inning of his NLDS start in Atlanta. He didn’t quite reach that level Monday night, but was 95-97 in the first inning and handled the ball well, as he usually does. He has swing-and-miss skills, but also has the ability to produce double-digit groundballs with his sinker-slider combination. He has various methods to unbalance teams.
“Man, his stuff, he came out crisp and he came out hot and he had everything moving in a really positive direction,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said of Wheeler.
“I just had a feeling that we would weather the storm, we would find ourselves in this ballgame at some point. The deficit at five was simply too great. They have a very strong bullpen. We know this. But I think it was power stuff. It was just like get up and go, here it comes. Whether it was two-seam or four-seam stuff, it was just really, really aggressive stuff with his fastball. He beat us with his best pitch.”
As he continues to deliver on baseball’s biggest stage, Wheeler is consciously trying not to take these moments for granted. Over the years, he has made a habit of coming out early on the afternoon of his starts to watch batting practice from the dugout, a rarity for a starting pitcher. It’s important to him to absorb everything. After all, even the longest-running top leagues only spend a fraction of their lives as active players.
“It’s always pretty cool to go to the bullpen,” he said. “From the first pitch you can hardly hear yourself thinking. You always take a step back. This is what I’ve learned throughout my career: You pay attention and enjoy these moments because they won’t last forever.” . You have to enjoy them while they last.”
Phillies fans do the same thing. They watched this team go through a long, arduous and sometimes unsuccessful rebuilding process from an annual competition between 2007 and 2011.
Now the Phillies are in position to make their second straight World Series appearance if they can simply split their next six games.
“We just have to move on, worry about ourselves and understand that they’re not going to back down,” Harper said. “They won’t do anything differently. They’re going to be the Arizona Diamondbacks they’ve been all year, and we just have to play our game and understand that.”