Phillies Take 2-0 NLCS Lead vs. Diamondbacks on Pitching, Big Hitters
As predicted, the Arizona Diamondbacks lost the first two games of the National League Championship Series against the Phillies in Philadelphia behind their two best starting pitchers.
The Phillies clobbered the D-backs, 10-0, on Tuesday night in Game 2 at Citizens Bank Park. This came after a 5-3 drubbing in Game 1 Monday night that wasn’t as close as the score indicated, given the Phillies jumped off to a 5-0 lead.
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The Diamondbacks found that Philly is a tough place to play.
“Look, we could be playing on the moon,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said in his postgame media conference. “Everybody is talking about coming into this environment, and I don’t care. We have to play better baseball. Everybody has to be better. You can start with the manager and then trickle all the way down through the entire team.”
Now the D-backs return to Chase Field in Phoenix for the next two games on Thursday afternoon and Friday night. The team will be leaning on their bullpen to even the best-of-seven series, since they have no viable veteran starters left on the playoff roster.
If the D-backs don’t win both at home, the Phillies will go on to the World Series for the second consecutive postseason and play the winner of the Texas-Houston battle in the American League Championship Series. The Rangers head into Game 3 at Globe Life Field Wednesday with a 2-0 lead.
Last year, the Astros defeated the Phillies in six World Series games.
The 90-win Phils have been difficult to play at Citizens Bank Park this year. They were 49-32 at home during the regular season, and thus far are 6-0 there in the playoffs with a combined score of 40-7; the team easily dispatched the Miami Marlins and the Atlanta Braves, and have now won the first two games of the D-backs series.
The Phillies’ big boppers—Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber—have hit six homers in the first two games, and Schwarber has hit three alone. The team has smacked 19 total so far in the playoffs.
“We have a really good lineup, and it’s a long lineup,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said during his postgame session. “We’re swinging the bats really well right now.”
Plus, starting pitchers Zach Wheeler and Aaron Nola dominated the D-backs, holding the team to six hits—three each—in winning the first two games.
The Diamondbacks lost behind Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, their two best starters. Gallen let up three homers in Game 1, including to Schwarber, batting lead-off, on the first pitch of the game. Harper and Castellanos followed. In Game 2 off Kelly, Turner gave the Phils a 1-0 lead in the first inning, and Schwarber later hit two more. Philadelphia put Tuesday night’s game out of reach with four runs in both the sixth and seventh innings.
“This isn’t us,” Lovullo said. “We’ve got to play Diamondback baseball. We have to regroup the troops and find a way to get it done.”
Though this has at times been the D-backs this year; the team finished 84-78 and had a nine-game losing streak at one point.
The Phils have Ranger Suarez lined up for Game 3 and either Taijuan Walker or Cristopher Sanchez ready to go in Game 4.
For the D-backs, these will be bullpen games. They’ll start Brandon Pfaadt Thursday in Game 3 before a sellout crowd at Chase Field, although Lovullo usually restricts the rookie right-hander to about 50 pitches. Pfaadt threw 42 pitches in Game 3 of Arizona’s 4-2 clinching win over the Los Angeles Dodgers as the D-backs swept their NLDS.
Pfaadt bounced back and forth from the minors all season and recorded a 3-8 record and 5.72 ERA in 18 big-league starts.
After falling into an 0-2 hole in Philadelphia, it’s incumbent on the Diamondbacks to win at least two of the next three games to get back to Philly for Game 6. Arizona was swept in the NLCS by the Colorado Rockies in 2007, the last time they made it that far—and that can easily happen again.
The D-backs left themselves short on veteran starting pitching when they elected to designate Madison Bumgarner for assignment on April 20, despite his having $47 million to go on his $85 million contract through 2027—$18 million this year, $14 million in 2024 and $5 million each for 2025-27.
Bumgarner was 15-32 with a 5.23 ERA in his 69 D-backs starts, a far cry from the guy who buzzed through three championships with the San Francisco Giants under then-manager Bruce Bochy, logging a 4-0 record, a 0.25 ERA and a save in the World Series.
The D-backs could have used the old Bumgarner this year in the playoffs, but at 34 years old, that version no longer existed. Bumgarner was 0-3 with a 10.26 ERA in four starts this season when he was released.
Bochy, now managing the Rangers, said he subsequently contacted Bumgarner, but the pitcher told Bochy he wasn’t physically and mentally ready to pitch. Bumgarner hasn’t signed with another team.
D-backs GM Mike Hazen asked management to eat Bumgarner’s contract, but he failed to trade for another veteran starter, although there were plenty available. He was reluctant because his club lost 10 out of 11 around the deadline. They went through 28 pitchers this season and released the veteran Zach Davies without explanation on Sept. 29, two days before the end of the regular season.
That has left the D-backs in this precarious spot and the Phillies on the verge of again ascending to the World Series.
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