Phillies Clinch After Burning the Ace Who Saved Them

Zack Wheeler threw six one-run innings Sunday, and the Phillies beat the Rays 7-3 to grab the last NL wild-card berth. Philadelphia finished 88-74 as the No. 6 seed and opens a best-of-three on Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Atlanta. The ace who saved Game 162 will not be on full rest for any of those games.

The Ace Who Cannot Start on Tuesday

Interim manager Don Mattingly called it a Game 7, and Wheeler pitched like one on a wet afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. He walked nobody, struck out five, and needed 97 pitches to get through six innings with the season on the line. The right-hander finished 14-5 with a 3.00 ERA, 193 strikeouts, and 47 walks in 162 innings across 28 starts.

WHEELER ON SUNDAY

• The outing: Six innings, one run, five hits, five strikeouts, no walks, 97 pitches.
• The season: A 14-5 record, 3.00 ERA, and 162 innings in 28 starts.
• The stretch: Seven runs and 45 strikeouts over 37.2 innings in his last six starts.
• The cost: He cannot start on full rest in a series that ends Thursday if it goes three.

Jonny DeLuca finally got him in the fifth with a 382-foot homer, his second of the day and 11th of the year. Philadelphia answered in the same inning. Bryce Harper, who started all 162 games for the first time in his career, led off with his 29th homer, a 366-foot shot to right that was his first in 46 innings. Brandon Marsh followed with a sacrifice fly, and Edmundo Sosa homered 351 feet to make it 7-1.

Kyle Schwarber had already doubled home two in the second and belly-flopped into the bag. Bryson Stott, hitting cleanup for the seventh time, went 3-for-3 and drove in the first run with a double. J.T. Realmuto snapped an 0-for-34 skid with an RBI double. The club stacked 12 hits after scoring three runs in four games. Jhoan Duran struck out Nick Fortes to end it.

Wheeler told WIP he settled in once he had a cushion. Mattingly declined to name a Game 1 starter in the clubhouse. Jesús Luzardo, activated from the injured list after left-shoulder inflammation that had kept him out since a Sept. 7 start, threw a 1-2-3 inning in relief. That is the rotation Philadelphia will take to Truist Park: an All-Star on short rest, a rookie, a veteran who just got hit on two days’ rest, and an ace who already spent his turn.

The 23-3 Week That Nearly Ended October

The Phillies could have closed this out as early as Wednesday. They held a four-game lead with five games to play after beating Milwaukee 6-4 on Sept. 22. Then they lost four in a row and were outscored 23-3. Saturday was a 12-1 loss to the same Rays club that already had an AL East title and a first-round bye.

Stats Perform had the warning in plain language. No team in a non-shortened season in the divisional era, which dates to 1969, had held a four-game lead with five to play and missed the playoffs. Philadelphia was a Sunday loss and an Arizona win from becoming the first.

HOW THE LEAD VANISHED

1. Sept. 1: Hold a 6 1/2-game lead on Arizona for the third NL wild card.
2. Sept. 18: Still lead by five games with eight to play, after the Padres and Cubs have already climbed past them in the wild-card row.
3. Sept. 22: Beat the Brewers 6-4 behind Wheeler and sit four games up with five left.
4. Sept. 23-26: Lose four straight and get outscored 23-3, including a 12-1 home loss on Saturday.
5. Sept. 27: Beat the Rays 7-3 in Game 162 and clinch the last NL wild-card berth.

Aaron Nola started Saturday on two days’ rest because the club would not burn Wheeler until it had to, and Nola lasted one inning, three runs, four hits. The September bullpen had a 5.23 ERA, fourth-worst in the majors, before Sunday. Relievers have a 5.79 ERA since Sept. 1, last in the majors. The week that was supposed to be a clinch party became a four-game audit of every weak seam on the roster.

Middleton Still Sees Chico Ruiz Stealing Home

John Middleton, the Phillies’ managing partner and CEO, was nine years old on Sept. 21, 1964, sitting in the second deck on the third-base side at Connie Mack Stadium. He watched Cincinnati’s Chico Ruiz steal home. That loss opened a 10-game losing streak for a club that had a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 to play and then gave away the National League pennant.

It was kind of a living hell in slow motion.

John Middleton, Phillies managing partner and CEO, after Game 162

He still calls those 1964 memories bad and vivid. This club entered September with the same 6 1/2-game cushion over Arizona, then spent the month getting caught. The 1964 team never won again in September after Jim Bunning’s Sept. 20 win. The 2026 team at least got a Sunday.

It is the fifth straight playoff trip, matching the 2007-11 run for the longest streak in franchise history. Rob Thomson, who had taken them to four straight Octobers and the 2022 World Series, was fired April 28 after a 9-19 start. Mattingly, the bench coach and the father of general manager Preston Mattingly, took over as interim manager through the end of the season. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said last week he would wait until the season was complete before deciding on Mattingly’s future. That decision now sits on the other side of Atlanta.

Arizona Held the Tiebreaker and Went Home Anyway

The Diamondbacks did not need Philadelphia to collapse in a vacuum. They held the tiebreaker. The clubs split their season series 3-3, so the next test was intradivisional record, and Arizona had it. A win over San Diego plus a Phillies loss would have put them on a Sunday night flight to Atlanta.

They got neither. Philadelphia led 4-0 before Arizona even settled into its first inning at Petco Park, and the Phillies never handed the scoreboard back. Torey Lovullo’s club lost 9-4 after the berth was already gone, finishing 86-76. The late push was a six-game winning streak that included a sweep of Colorado, then a 10-7 loss on Saturday that left them on the razor.

FINAL NL WILD CARD

Arizona had been five games out of a playoff spot on Sept. 18. The 86 wins were a six-win jump from last year’s 80-82, and the 2023 World Series run is still the only October trip since 2017. Nolan Arenado said Philadelphia probably felt a little extra life after Arizona lost Saturday. By Sunday afternoon that extra life was a 7-3 win and a charter to Georgia, not Arizona.

A 9-4 Season Series Waits in Atlanta

The Braves won the NL East at 94-68 and already handled Philadelphia in the regular season. Atlanta took 9 of 13 meetings, which is a large part of why the division was not close. The Phillies finished six games back in the East and still have to go on the road for every game of this round.

October has gone the other way. These clubs have met in three prior postseason series, and Philadelphia has won all three, including as a wild card against a division-winning Braves club in 2022 and 2023. The 2022 series helped send the Phillies to the World Series. That history is real, and so is the 9-4 ledger from this year.

Chris Sale is lined up to set the tone in Game 1, his first postseason appearance since 2021 and his first with Atlanta after a back injury kept him out of the 2024 wild-card round. He posted a 2.16 ERA in 27 starts. Harper is 2-for-21 against him. Schwarber is 2-for-25. Tyler Mahle gives Atlanta a second starter behind Sale. The winner of this series gets the Dodgers in the NL Division Series.

Why the NL East Rematch Starts at 2 p.m.

Game 1 is Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, with Game 2 at the same hour on Wednesday and a Thursday game if the series lasts. That afternoon window is the leftover slot on a board that gave the Yankees and Red Sox 8 p.m. every night. A heavyweight division rematch that has already produced three October series is the lunchtime game.

WILD CARD WINDOWS, GAME 1

MLB put the entire wild-card round on NBC platforms, the first postseason baseball on NBC since 2000, when the network last carried an ALCS. Peacock streams every game. The East Coast prime-time slot went to New York and Boston, as it was always going to. Philadelphia’s path out of a near-miss is three possible day games in the park where it already went 4-9 against this opponent.

Road doubt is the honest read of that draw. A 9-4 season series does not vanish because 2022 and 2023 exist. The 2 p.m. starts also shrink the margin for a bullpen that has been the worst in the majors since Sept. 1. Whoever starts Tuesday will be pitching in the first inning of a short series with the closer already used on Sunday and the ace on a countdown to Thursday.

Chris Sale Has Harper 2-for-21 This Year

Mattingly can pick from a short and tired list. Cristopher Sánchez, the All-Star left-hander, will not be on full rest until Wednesday. Andrew Painter is the rookie option. Nola just absorbed that short-rest beating on Saturday. Luzardo’s innings cap is unknown after one clean frame in his first work since Sept. 7. Wheeler’s earliest realistic date is a Game 3 on Thursday, still on short rest.

WHO CAN START IN ATLANTA

• Game 1: Sánchez on short rest, Painter, or Nola after one inning on Saturday.
• Luzardo: One 1-2-3 inning on Sunday after a shoulder IL stint; unknown how many innings he can give.
• Wheeler: Earliest path is Game 3 on Thursday, still short rest, after 97 pitches on Sunday.
• The bullpen: A 5.79 ERA since Sept. 1, last in the majors, with Duran already used to close Game 162.

Harper was blunt about the week and about what is next. He said the club did not play its best baseball in September and probably should have clinched two weeks ago. He also pointed at Sale.

This is the start of the story right here. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We’ll see what happens. That’s a really good team down there in Atlanta. We’re going to face the best left-handed pitcher in the world, so we’ll see.

Bryce Harper, Phillies first baseman, after the clinch

Sale will throw first in a park where Atlanta already won the year. Harper will hit against a pitcher who has him 2-for-21. Wheeler will watch. The Phillies are in, 88-74, fifth straight October, and the living hell Middleton named now has a 2 p.m. first pitch on Tuesday.