RECAP: Game 3 NLDS – Phillies “closest to death” they can get

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Bryce Harper and welcome to the Philly Show.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, Welcome to The Philly Show with Ruben Amaro Junior, Jim Salisbury, Todd Z A lucky. It is the morning after Game three of the National League Division Series, a seven to Phillies loss. The Phillies, gentlemen, on the brink of elimination, some around earlier than they finished last season, two rounds earlier than they finished two years before. They're in a spot that I'm sure they never imagined when they all got together in spring training in February. You know, they they expected to get to the World Series, win the World Series, and now they're in such a bad spot. When I watched that game last night, I don't know what if there was this particular moment for you guys, but for me, it was that sixth sitting at bat with Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber's works a walk, Trey Turner works a walk on five pitches, like four of those pitches were all way out of the zone, and then Bryce Harper goes down swinging on three pitches and I was like, oh, that's that's not a good sign. And certainly it wasn't Reuben. When you look back at that game, it was there a particular moment for you that that jumped out.

00:01:34
Speaker 3: Well, that was certainly one of them, there's no question about that, and that was a big one. I mean, how many teams in the playoffs have two guys get on via walk in the beginning of an inning when you have your one and two hole guys and then your three, four, five coming up and not score. And that's one of the things that's sort of over the last half of the season has really sort of plagued the Phillies, the situational hitting, their ability to their ability to put together and strange gather quality at bats back to back to back. I just saw Harper in that situation. He really struggled with the angle from Sean Mania Sean and I dropped down his angle. There's been a lot of talk about, you know, what he did in the adjustment he made in the middle of the season based on you know, watching Chris Sale and from July thirtieth on, he watched him on July twenty fifth, he implemented in July thirtieth and then from then on he's been outstanding. That said, that's one of those situations where he's got to make have at least a productive out, but he ended up swinging at a change up and then a couple of breaking balls that were pretty tough ones. The last one was well off the plate and it was just you know, that was a that was a difficulty bat for the team. And then you know, rarely do you see Schober make based running mistakes. Line drive from casianos to second base, low line drive. You know, Schober's not a very fast runner, but he's a good base runner, and he's an intelligence base runner gets doubled off and that sort of took the wind out.

00:03:05
Speaker 4: Of their sales.

00:03:06
Speaker 3: But I think the biggest thing for them is in the early part of the season they were getting out to early leads, just pounding people with early leads and get getting on that starting pitching. And it's been a long time since they've done that consistently. They have not been able to get early leads and give that starting pitcher a breather. There's no breather for the starting pitcher. He has to be perfect right now, and that is a super difficult position to put them in, especially when you have guys who are vulnerable like Aaron Nola to the home run, and you saw that happen yesterday with the single home runs. And really I thought Aaron pitched really, really well. He made two mistakes. I don't understand why they're trying to throw in not trying to throw in on on Alonso, They're letting him get extended.

00:03:50
Speaker 4: He hit a home run to right.

00:03:51
Speaker 3: He's hit got three home runs to right and the lasts like five or six games, I mean, and then he keeps kind of pound them away. And then he then and he threw it like basically a two to one fastball right down the middle, which is where JT was setting up for that against Winkers. They mean, I saw the setup and it's literally set up right down the middle of the plate on that two to one pitch.

00:04:15
Speaker 4: And how often do you.

00:04:17
Speaker 3: Do that with a guy like Nola or Wheeler or Sanchez or Suarez. You just don't ever do that set up in the middle of the plate. And that's what they did. And uh, and he whacked it out of the ballpark. I mean, they served up two cookies and there down to nothing.

00:04:32
Speaker 5: I mean, maybe are they did he not set up in because they don't have confidence he can execute the pitch, and I raised that because you go to that sixth inning and the Harper at that and seean Maniah opens up Harper with a change up, uh, and he kind of you know, and a left on left change up, and that pitch takes a lot of confidence to throw, and it set up that hole at that. Now he he goes away in a way and he gets them, and that was a big turning point there.

00:05:03
Speaker 3: I just don't know, I think and listen, I think I thought I thought Aaron Ole was commanding the pitch pitches fairly well. But if I mean, if I'm gonna get beat why not get beat away? I mean, pitch them away, play them away if you're gonna and they put they set up on that particular pitch.

00:05:16
Speaker 4: I'll go back and look at it again, I just because I did.

00:05:21
Speaker 3: And JT set up literally right down the middle on a to one pitch was just war course right there. Threw it right to the glove and it was a crushing I wasn't I don't really understand what.

00:05:31
Speaker 4: Was going on there, whether he was trying to just get a strike or what. Anyway, there was a lot of there's a lot to unpack there. That it has been terrible. They have not well, you know, the at bats have been horrible in an early part of the early part of the game. Alec Holme's lost.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: I mean, you have all types of stuff going on right now where you're just not you're not getting what you need out of your guys, and uh, and it's and you got and and the Mets are playing good baseball, and you got to give them because they're playing really good, really good baseball, they're coming up with gigantic two out hits at the same time. To think about when the Boston Redstots won their World Series.

00:06:13
Speaker 4: What was it in twenty eighteen.

00:06:17
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there was a team that had the most two out RBIs in all of baseball, particularly in the postseason. When you do that, man, it is a backbreaker for teams. And uh, you know, Marte did it yesterday, did the Phillies.

00:06:29
Speaker 5: And the Phillies had a bunch of them in Game two. But I will point out they've only had four good offensive.

00:06:34
Speaker 4: Innings in three games.

00:06:37
Speaker 5: And you know, they have been inconsistent really since early June. So it's not surprising really the inconsistency we're seeing offensively because we all talked about it going in. That was our biggest fear coming into this series. So it.

00:06:55
Speaker 2: Does just remind me of the past what we've been watching for the past few month. I mean, this series just looks like late September when they were up here not get being able to put any string any hits together.

00:07:08
Speaker 1: You know, it looks like August. It looks like July to me.

00:07:12
Speaker 2: And you know, then you sit there and go, okay, Game four Wednesday night at City Field, you just don't have a great feeling about this team's ability to string together a big inning early. I mean, they certainly can do it, they definitely can do it. But it just the more you watch this team coming down the stretch like oh okay, maybe this is you know, it kind of reminds me a little bit of the end of the twenty eleven season. I think there were some concerns about the offense right going in, and they just weren't hitting the ball that great and man, maybe Hunter Pence can provide some punch and then it just it just didn't happen. You know, like a couple of balls to go to the warning track, but the caught, you know, a couple of hard hit balls. The first inning they crushed three balls, one in the air, two on the ground, all outs.

00:08:04
Speaker 1: They just sit there and go, Yeah.

00:08:07
Speaker 5: They have to figure out a way tonight game four to get the ball into Wheelers' hands for Game five. But it's gonna be a very tall order with the way this team chases, because you know, Quintana is a guy that tries to get guys out or make guys get themselves out by chasing, and this team is so prone to it. You know, Quintana might be a bad matchup for this team. If he's missing his spots and he's over the plate, they'll hit him. But if he's Quintana, they're gonna have trouble.

00:08:36
Speaker 4: Absolutely, You're you're right at You're spot on.

00:08:38
Speaker 3: I mean they've had trouble with him in the past because of that, because he knows how to pitch, he knows to stay off the plate enough to let other people get themselves out.

00:08:46
Speaker 4: To a great point, Jim.

00:08:48
Speaker 3: You know, one of the things I think about with this lineup is that, you know, you don't have a whole lot of guys who are great hitters.

00:08:55
Speaker 4: They are dangerous hitters, and.

00:08:57
Speaker 3: They have power, but when a guy like Alec Bohm is not going well.

00:09:01
Speaker 4: He's one of their real good hitters.

00:09:04
Speaker 3: I mean, he's he's a you know, he's a two seventy five to three hundred, you know type of a hitter who can use you know, go gap to gap. Right now, he's lost, and that crushes them because they don't.

00:09:17
Speaker 4: Have a guy in the middle of that lineup.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: Who are other than Harper, who's a hitter, who's a guy that you know that will work and grind in at bat. They don't have a Jose Iglesias who's in grinding at bats out, who's putting balls in play, who's working Brandon Nimmo, who grinds out at bats and makes the picture work and makes him throw strikes and stays in the strike zone. They have a lot bunch of hackers and slashers basically who who can hack and slash really really well when they're going well, but they can be they're also very very exploitable, which is exactly what's happening. And again it's going to be after like a level of patience and taking swings at and making good hard contact on pitches that they're supposed to make gar contact with and that's really the formula, and it's not happening right now for the Phillies because they don't have They don't have like the classic You would think that Bryson Scott would be that guy, that the guy like Marsh would be that guy, but they just haven't been those guys in the latter part of the seasons.

00:10:21
Speaker 5: Boombs drop off to me is as confounding as Rangers wis.

00:10:26
Speaker 4: I totally agree with that.

00:10:27
Speaker 5: And two made you know, I know they're there, so this word sounds funny, but two major losses. You know, they're just not being themselves, you know, not being what you got early.

00:10:39
Speaker 1: We will be right back.

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00:11:37
Speaker 1: We're back, Jim.

00:11:38
Speaker 2: You mentioned the losses and they're they're here, but they're not here. Ranger swarez. It's tough to go into game four with Ranger Suarez in saying this, man, I hope he can rediscover that October magic that he's had the past two years. If Ranger Suarez can just discovered that October magic the past two years, you know, maybe they can have a shot. But really, I think you're going into it going can he get four in it? Can they get four innings out of him? Does he get through the lineup once and then go to the bullpen. But here's the problem. I mean, Jose Ruiz Ryan kirk Ring. You know, the bullpen is not pitching well, so it's a really, really tall challenge for him. What do you guys expect out of Ranger tonight or what's what's the best case scenario for Ranger besides putting up zeros?

00:12:34
Speaker 5: The best case is that he pulls one out of you know what, because I don't have a ton of confidence and you know, Ranger, he could be a touch and field guy and he hasn't pitched him what eleven days? Okay, I know the bullpen, that's fine, but he don't. I don't think he's pitched since that Washington series and he got lit up there and I guess you could pull a rabbit out of him. But what we saw and you know, late in the season doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. And then handed, you know, handing the ball off to the bullpen the way they're going doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. They're gonna have to They're gonna have to hope Quintana's over the play and they just outslugged this team, and I don't know if that's true.

00:13:15
Speaker 2: Right, So real quick, I'm gonna ask you this question, Rubin, so the Phillies have said, Ranger, he pitched two innings in that inner squad game last week, and what they've told us is, Man, he looked really good in those two innings.

00:13:28
Speaker 1: He looked really good in those two innings.

00:13:30
Speaker 2: Is that if you were in that spot in telling the media that, I mean, how much is that is actually truth?

00:13:37
Speaker 1: Not that's saying that they're making it up or anything, But.

00:13:41
Speaker 2: Is that Can you take anything out of pitching well in two innings in an inner squad game last Wednesday at Citizen Bank Park with nobody in the stands? Is that? Could that possibly make you feel confident as a general manager, or as a manager or as a teammate. If he goes out and throws well in two innings in an intersquad game.

00:13:57
Speaker 3: Well, it can give you some level of confidence, But it really doesn't tell you much about whether or not he's going to be able to, like go like more than two or three innings, because they really sort of need him to go as long as he possibly can and be effective for as long as he possibly can.

00:14:12
Speaker 4: Know, velocity doesn't mean any enemy.

00:14:13
Speaker 3: Is the way the ball's coming out of his hand and the life he has on the pitches and his ability. You know, his ability physically to be able to make his pitches. I just don't know that he is in the same physical condition to be prepared to pitch the way he pitched in the first part of the season.

00:14:33
Speaker 4: In the first part of the season, he was in great condition.

00:14:35
Speaker 3: It was the first time he ever had a full spring training where he got his legs underneath him, his body was in a good position.

00:14:42
Speaker 4: His back flared up.

00:14:43
Speaker 3: He wasn't able to do whatever conditioning stuff he needed to do with his hips, his lower half, whatever the case may be, to sustain that. When he came back, never went out on a rehab assignment.

00:14:55
Speaker 4: I get it.

00:14:56
Speaker 3: I know why they do it. Now I don't. I guess I shouldn't say I get it because I don't get it.

00:15:03
Speaker 4: I think he's a.

00:15:04
Speaker 3: Guy who probably should have gone out and thrown like two or three games to get himself back into a physical space to be ready to pitch in this environment right now.

00:15:14
Speaker 4: He did not, and so now he is.

00:15:18
Speaker 3: You're hoping that he can come back and have the life on the stuff he has his life on, his fastball, change up, breaking ball, everything In the first part of the season, was as good as anybody's in baseball. He was a cy Young Award candidate and maybe the best left tended. We're talking about Tarrek Scougle right now, we're talking about Chris Sale, and we're talking about Zach Wheeler.

00:15:39
Speaker 4: This guy was a cy.

00:15:40
Speaker 3: Young Award candidate and he was as good as it was as you can get. And then physically now he's not able to be that guy.

00:15:49
Speaker 4: That's sort of inexcusable.

00:15:51
Speaker 3: That said, Probably a lot of it had to do with the fact that he was not able to do things because of his back.

00:15:58
Speaker 4: The back means a lot. Back affects the lower half. Lower half affects your.

00:16:02
Speaker 3: Ability to to you know, to to be effective, and you know, and you're hoping against hope right now that he can he can do just what he does now.

00:16:12
Speaker 4: If there's anybody who can do it, Metalie, it's him. If there's anything, because he can. He can be robotic, he can be like a cliff League.

00:16:18
Speaker 3: He can be a robot sometimes out there because the things don't things don't affect him. And I think that the Phillies are hopeful that he can do that.

00:16:26
Speaker 2: I could walking out of it when he was packing up and getting out of the clubhouse history, he almost he had that typical kind of like ranger.

00:16:32
Speaker 1: I don't say smirk, but just kind of like, you know.

00:16:35
Speaker 2: It's a little swag going. He's getting his stuff together leaving, and he kind of had a little smile on his face and a little less than a smile, but you know what I'm saying, he had that Ranger like you said, that Ranger swag. So he didn't seem to be sweating bullets walking out of the ballpark last night. And you know he won't be getting on the mound. It's just what guy are you going to get?

00:16:54
Speaker 5: Nobody you mentioned you Todd, You mentioned that Rob said he threw the ball really well on the Answer squad, But who knows. I mean that comment might have been as much for Rangers consumption and Rangers confidence as anything. And this whole thing about yeah, you know, the conditioning in the lower half. Okay, he's been back for weeks. He's had more than enough rehab starts. They've just been at the big league level. He needs to go back in time, you know, to April, May and June tonight and kind of team with with with a rabbit out of his hat. He's got to give him five. I don't know if he can give him any more than that, but they've got to hit for him, They got to hit for everybody. Give these guys some margin for error. And you know this, I don't have a lot of confidence there because of just what we've seen, the inconsistency in the second half, the inconsistency in this series. Like I said, they've had four decent innings in this series, and.

00:17:57
Speaker 2: Also, like you never, you know, it's not good when going into game four, you're sitting there going, should West and Wilson start and left field either? I mean, it sounds like that is a possibility, but you know, you know my point, you know what I'm saying, it's when you're going into game four, it's it was like last year, everybody killing Johann Rohas. And yes, he was terrible offensively last year, so bad four for forty three, one walk, fifteen strikeouts. But if the other eight guys are doing their job, it doesn't matter what Johann Rojas is doing. If you're sitting there going, maybe we need to play weston Wilson to help this offense out in game four? What what are we doing what's what is happening right now?

00:18:43
Speaker 1: Something else is really not going well.

00:18:46
Speaker 5: Same thing with Sosa, Same thing with say because your boys haven't been your boys, So now it's gonna be West and Wilson and we're gonna put the blame on the center fielder, and you're gonna put the blame on Austin Hayes. The big boys need to be the big boys.

00:19:00
Speaker 4: No question about it. You guys hit the nail on the head.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: The guys in the first five, the five positions in the lineup can't just go, you know, one hit, no extra base hits. You have you know, four pitches and out and that stuff can't happen because if it does, the season's over. They have to be the guys, and you can you can talk about it till you're blue in the face.

00:19:24
Speaker 4: Should stop play? Should this guy play? Should boone play?

00:19:28
Speaker 3: Guess what, guys, those guys who are paid millions upon millions of dollars, they have to play and they have to produce because they're not pitching around all of them, right, they can't pitch.

00:19:39
Speaker 4: Around all of them. I mean, somebody's gonna have to produce.

00:19:43
Speaker 2: It's the old Uh yeah, it's the old like Michael Martinez thing. Remember into five guy, everybody everybody hated your Ruben because he had Michael Martinez.

00:19:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you're a good little athlete and he and all he did run around the field and do you know, try to try to do as much.

00:19:59
Speaker 1: As that sunk the twenty eleventh Phillies.

00:20:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's He's definitely the reason.

00:20:05
Speaker 1: But I meant point being, you know, I guess I made it.

00:20:08
Speaker 2: You know, just you know, those those last guys in the bench are not going to make or break the Phillies. You know, they need they need some good innings from Ranger. They need the bullpen to not do what it's been doing the first three games. Would you would you throw Christopher Sanchez out there tonight?

00:20:24
Speaker 1: I mean it would be he threw a bullpen.

00:20:26
Speaker 4: He threw a bullpen yesterday. Someone said, but listen, I'm all hands on deck. In fact, I wanted to a little it, which is Wheeler. I was Wheeler rail one.

00:20:34
Speaker 3: I think they Rob Tobbins had asked about that and he said, hey, everybody's available, and I believe in that. I mean, listen, you got to be able to you got to be able to be hands on. Everybody has to pitch and be ready to pitch.

00:20:47
Speaker 4: And I get it.

00:20:49
Speaker 3: Maybe it's maybe Wheeler can't go on Friday because of it, but you can't get the.

00:20:54
Speaker 4: Friday unless you went on, unless you win tonight.

00:20:58
Speaker 5: So they need one of those efforts like in twenty twenty two when they beat the Braves. Remember they used like six pictures, seven pictures. They had no walks, fifteen k's. I'm not saying it'd be that extreme, but you're gonna need multiples all to be on top.

00:21:13
Speaker 3: Of the game, no doubt, no doubt. And you're right about that, Jim. I mean, these guys have to score some runs. Man, they got to give they give somebody a breather. Everybody talks about.

00:21:24
Speaker 4: Well it's Aaron Nola's falling the bullpen. Well guess what guys They had five hits, Yeah, zeros. And it's a big ballpark.

00:21:35
Speaker 3: It's not like you know, it's a place you can you can do some damage. And I think the one saving grace I think that they might have is that they've already seen a left hander. They just saw a left hander who has sort of similar types of stuff. I mean, it's a little different because seanman I is coming from a different angle. But they sinking ton on a lot. They just saw Searmanyah, maybe they're poised to be able to make the adjustment that are necessarily against.

00:22:02
Speaker 4: Who knows. That's the beauty of baseball, baby.

00:22:05
Speaker 5: Early leads are when you get an early lead, you put a lot of pressure on the imposing team. Now, I know you can say, well, they got an early lead in game one, schwar Worth. I mean, there's no better way to start a game, and they but they didn't can They didn't sustain that pressure. They need to put up a funny looking number early in the in the in the game tonight, just to again like in Game two when they when they came alive, they JT said, we finally were able to breathe. Well, they need to put up an early lead tonight, a decent sized early lead where they can breathe and then sustain because they you know, build some confidence and they're not press them and and it allows them to sustain because they're not just grinding the bat handle.

00:22:49
Speaker 4: And they can't stop.

00:22:50
Speaker 3: There's like in the early part of the season when they score early, you got to keep scoring, got to score a sixth and the seventh and the eighth. You got to keep scoring, because guess what, Mets aren't going away. Baby, they're battling, they're grass, they're playing with house money, and they're playing with confidence, and they're enjoying this time right now. You see how many joyers on their face. They're they're loving it and they're believing in themselves. So you got to keep pounding at it. And uh and you see, you know there's tension on the Philly side. There's no tension on it on the Mets side. And it's a very difficult game to play with tension.

00:23:22
Speaker 4: And I'm more their way go.

00:23:24
Speaker 1: And you need is that the love of the game.

00:23:29
Speaker 4: Love of the game.

00:23:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, you need to just let it fly. You need to love it. You need to instead of just saying, you know, we're we got the way to the world on us, go out and just love the game and bathe in it, and get an early lead, and and bathe in this rivalry, and and and and take great pleasure in hushing up forty four thousand people and that's what And get an early lead and see what happens. If not red, October is going to be quite gray.

00:23:59
Speaker 3: So not only that, but that's what Cassianos was saying at the end of the game yesterday. I mean, that's what that's what it was all about. You got to embrace it, man, embrace it and make it happen.

00:24:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, we've never been closer to the death. That should make us feel more alive than ever.

00:24:15
Speaker 4: It's very profound. He's a deep thinker, man.

00:24:17
Speaker 1: He is a deep thinker.

00:24:18
Speaker 2: When he said that, I was like, huh, I'm gonna.

00:24:22
Speaker 5: Stick my finger in light sockets more alive. I want to feel what it feels like to be that close to death, and I'll never feel more alive.

00:24:31
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see.

00:24:32
Speaker 2: We will be back tomorrow whether the Phillies are alive or dead. We'll find out if they get to get back to Game five on Friday night. Guys, Thanks a lot, talk to you, guys.

00:24:49
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00:24:52
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00:24:54
Speaker 8: Show wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us on our YouTube channel. If you like what we do, give us a review, tell a friend. Catch Rubenjim and Me on Phillies Nation TV. Presented by Valley Forge Tourism New episodes air an hour before every Saturday Phillies game on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Replays air throughout the week and on Philliesnation dot com. Get more of Ruben's analysis during before and after Phillies games on NBC Sports Philadelphia, on the Sports Radio ninety four WIP Morning Show, and MLB Network. Read Jim at the Allcity Network at allphly dot com. Find more of me at MLB dot com, the Philliesbnewsletter, and occasionally on Mlbnetwork