October 06, 2025
The Phillies, winners of the NL East and 96 games this season, are on the brink of seeing their season end early once again after a painful 4-3 loss to the Dodgers in Game 2 of the NLDS.
Dodger Blake Snell and Phillie Jesús Luzardo traded zeros on the scoreboard for about two hours before Los Angeles finally broke through in the seventh inning.
The Phillies fought back with three late runs of their own but they couldn't dig themselves out of a deep late hole and their 2025 season now hangs by a thread.
Philadelphia is once again reeling from cold bats in the wake of another bye week. They'll have a day to lick their wounds before trying to achieve the impossible at Chavez Ravine on Wednesday, looking to come back from down 0-2 in the best of five series.
Just why this team, built on paper to compete in October, continues to fall on its face when the nights get crisp is a conversation for later (maybe for as soon as Wednesday). But right now, let's take a look at the good, the bad and the only really special moment from a forgettable Game 2 in South Philly:
• Max Kepler came off the bench and drilled a lead-off triple in the eighth inning to give a little life to the dreary onlooking sell-out crowd. He had a double in Game 1 — you can bet he'll be in the lineup for Game 3.
Trea Turner then proceeded to put the Phillies on the board with a no frills RBI-single a few pitches later. I have to admit, I didn't think the crowd would be able to turn it back up to 11 after the 4-0 deficit but credit to the Philly faithful they got back into it quickly (just in time to see Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper end the threat).
• An inning later, they were chirping again. Better late than never, right? Alec Bohm hit a single and J.T. Realmuto a double against Blake Treinen — a pitcher this team has owned when facing him. The bloopiest of bloop doubles you'll ever see from Nick Castellanos scored two runs and made this a ballgame.
FIGHTIN' pic.twitter.com/1YTsX1Ytbb
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) October 7, 2025
• The entire season has been a roller coaster for both Luzardo and for Phillies fans. He was at one point a surefire All-Star and Cy Young candidate before he historically fell apart and allowed 20 runs over a pair of disastrous starts in June and July. The Phillies were treated to the ace version of Luzardo Monday. After he wiggled out of an early jam with runners on the corners, thanks to a well-fielded line drive to Nick Castellanos and weak ground out, he retired 17 straight hitters.
In the seventh frame, Luzardo finally surrendered, with a single and double knocking him into the dugout for righty reliever Orion Kerkering. He was credited for two runs as Kerkering couldn't clean up the mess. In a vacuum, six-plus three-hit innings is a pretty solid day. But without an offense to support it, it's a wasted start.
• The Phillies were 42-24 after a loss in the regular season, the second best in baseball behind the Cubs. So much for that.
• "Moneyball" is one of my favorite movies. And it convinced me that bunting is stupid in basically every situation. With a runner on second and no one out, Stott tried to bunt Castellanos to third base and he failed, as the Dodgers got Castellanos out at third base. Some old school baseball is good. This particular old school baseball tactic is outdated and a losing idea. Of course, the very next hitter got a single — one that would have tied the game.
• Before Monday's game, Rob Thomson told the media that he stressed controlling the strike zone to his players ahead of Game 2.
“Snell likes to induce a lot of chase,” Thomson said. “You’ve got to be aware of what’s going on.”
That scouting report proved prophetic. After the team marginally improved its swing and miss rate from 25.9% to 25.7% from a year ago, they were really letting the bats fly Monday — and whiffing. Against the Dodgers' starter alone, Phillies hitters swung and missed 23 times (13 of them in the first three innings). For some context, most MLB games see each batting order whiff somewhere between 14-to-18 times in an entire game.
Snell was as masterful as was expected, striking out nine Phillies hitters and pitching around four walks in his six innings.
• After reaching with a third-inning walk, Brandon Marsh essentially handed the Dodgers an out for free when he was caught stealing by a mile. With Schwarber at the plate, working the count, why, oh why, would you try and steal a base?
• It's hard to win when your best hitters don't hit. Combined with their nearly absent (save for a Harper single) showing in the first game, the Phillies' superstar 1-through-3 hitters were a combined 1-for-18 to start the series until Turner drove in a garbage time run in the eighth.
The first hit for the Phillies didn't come until an Edmundo Sosa single with two outs in the fifth — so it wasn't just those three guys.
Schwarber especially has been invisible. The MVP candidate and National League leader in homers and RBI — the only player ever to have a home run in the ALWC, ALDS, ALCS, NLWC, NLDS, NLCS and World Series — is 0-for his last 21 dating back to September. He did walk with Turner on second in the sixth inning to create the Phillies' first real scoring opportunity — but Harper and Alec Bohm failed to plate anyone.
The good news is the last time he slumped like this, he blasted himself out of it with a four home run game. The bad news is the team might not be playing for much longer.
• A bad throw from Turner was responsible for the Dodgers' first run, as a weak groundout with runners on second and third prompted the shortstop to correctly fire for home, but the throw was on the wrong side of J.T. Realmuto at the plate and the tag was a hair late. That's what kind of margins these postseason games can have. Had that throw been on the mark we could be writing a different story.
The floodgates opened quickly after, as Kerkering walked the bases loaded and then gave up two runs on a single to Will Smith. Matt Strahm was knocked for another run when Shohei Ohtani's bat finally arrived in Philadelphia.
The Dodgers are too good a team to be kept at bay for nine innings in this environment, and the Phillies' lack of offense will likely be how this series is remembered if they can't complete an epic comeback out west in L.A.
• One more note here, the Jhoan Duran entrance is epic — but for the second straight game the lights went down and the bellowing LED flames throughout welcomed the closer to the mound with the Phillies losing. 'El Incomprendido' was blasting as fans filed for the exits in the ninth. Woof.
• We'll finish on a positive note. This happened 15 years ago tonight:
15 years ago today, Roy Halladay delivered one of the greatest playoff debuts ever — a no-hitter in his very first postseason start. pic.twitter.com/IdOgiJ6Bcu
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) October 6, 2025
Roy Halladay was one of the best to ever do it.
There have been some pretty awful dry spells — namely from 2012-2021 when the team was either way too old or badly run — but this city has seen some pretty amazing baseball over the last two decades. The fact that it's only brought one World Series is pretty mind boggling.
The Phillies are nothing but class, and trotted out Halladay's kids Braden and Ryan to toss the first pitch to Carlos Ruiz.
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