The Marlins arrived in Philadelphia this week confident after taking two of three from the Phillies both times they visited in 2023.
In the span of about 27 hours, they learned why playoff baseball at Citizens Bank Park is a different animal.
The Phillies dispatched of Miami, winning Game 1 Tuesday and beating the Marlins again, 7-1, Wednesday night to eliminate them from the playoffs. As the Fish head home for the offseason, the Phils move on to Atlanta for the NLDS, another postseason series against a division foe.
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The game was broken open by Bryson Stott's sixth-inning grand slam. The Phillies simply looked like the better and more prepared team on the mound, at the plate and in the field. After Zack Wheeler opened Game 1 with six goose eggs, Aaron Nola followed with seven more. Phillies pitchers faced the minimum three batters in 10 of the series' first 15 innings.
Combined, Wheeler and Nola allowed one run over 13⅔ innings, put just 10 men on base and struck out 11.
Nola ended his regular season with two strong starts in a row at Atlanta and home vs. Pittsburgh. He struck out 16 without a walk in those outings and he, catcher J.T. Realmuto and manager Rob Thomson have said he found something mechanically that has led to better command, particularly with his changeup and curveball.
Nola also pitched the Phillies' Game 2 clincher in the wild-card series last postseason in St. Louis. He began the 2022 playoffs with 12⅔ scoreless innings before running out of gas in the final two rounds. He then went through a rocky 2023 season, again making every start but dealing with a home run bug the first three months and an inability to minimize damage later.
Philadelphia Phillies
The only three instances when Nola encountered trouble Wednesday, he immediately worked his way out. Jon Berti doubled with one out in the third but Nola caught him attempting to steal third before committing toward the plate. In the fifth, the Marlins had the tying run at the plate with one out when Jesus Sanchez grounded into an inning-ending double play. An inning later, Nola hit Berti to lead things off but erased him on a Jacob Stallings double play.
Nola has delivered three consecutive quality starts, something he did only once during the regular season, from April 16-28.
The bottom of the Phillies' order produced the game's first run, just as it did Tuesday. Eight-hole hitter Cristian Pache led off the bottom of the third with a walk against Marlins left-hander Braxton Garrett, who had located well in the first two innings before losing his command and velocity in the third.
Pache scored easily on a double down the right-field line by Kyle Schwarber. The next batter, Trea Turner, singled Schwarber home with a line drive that ricocheted off of Garrett into left field.
Neither decision was difficult for third base coach Dusty Wathan, who was involved in three plays in Game 1, holding Schwarber on a ball where he might have scored, sending Nick Castellanos on a play he was thrown out at the plate, and putting up a stop sign that Bryce Harper ran through to score.
Thomson expressed confidence and support of Wathan's decisions pregame, saying that he felt he was a pretty good third base coach himself with the Yankees and that Wathan is even better.
Realmuto took former teammate David Robertson deep with a solo homer to left field to open the bottom of the fourth. It was the eighth time already in 2023 the Phils have faced Robertson, who was traded from the Mets to the Marlins ahead of the deadline.
Realmuto also doubled in his first at-bat. Much was made of the left-handedness of the Marlins' pitching staff, which includes seven southpaws. The Phillies' right-handed hitters had to deliver and they did. Turner had two productive, multi-hit nights. Realmuto laced two extra-base hits Wednesday. Castellanos doubled twice in Game 1. Alec Bohm doubled in the first run, Johan Rojas, in Game 1. Pache reached base twice in four plate appearances, drove in a run and scored once.
It was a team effort but the tone was set by the starting pitchers, Wheeler and Nola. Their scoreless work kept the crowd into it and the Phillies' offense feeling like all it needed was a couple of big hits against a Miami team that scored 14 fewer runs than anyone in the National League. The Phillies' next opponent, the Braves, led the majors in runs and tied the big-league record with 307 homers.
Marlins center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr., who made the final out of the game, said earlier in the week on the Miami Mic'd Up podcast that there wouldn't be a Thursday, there wouldn't be a Game 3.
He was correct.
Just not in the way he intended.