September 22, 2026
John Jones/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Bryson Stott and the Phillies can never get out of their own way.
The Phillies gave Saturday away, then gave themselves a golden chance to take it back.
But in almost textbook Philadelphia Phillies fashion, they let it go.
Brooks Raley loaded the bases in relief of Andrew Painter one out into the bottom of the sixth, and with a one-run lead, then gave up a Brett Baty liner into center that a diving Justin Crawford could only trap between his glove and the grass for another Mets run scored – and with the bases still full.
Interim manager Don Mattingly yanked Raley as soon as he could for Chase Shugart, and he walked in another to Ronny Mauricio – a .173 hitter at the bottom of the New York order – before a warning-track flyout from Francisco Lindor mercifully ended the frame.
The Phillies set themselves up with a bases-loaded answer of their own in the top of the seventh, after Trea Turner and Alec Bohm drew walks and Luis Arráez singled around a Kyle Schwarber groundout and a Bryce Harper strikeout. But under the pressure situation, Bryson Stott hacked a roller through the grass to second and was left slamming his helmet into the dirt as the Mets jogged back to their dugout without any damage.
The night unraveled from there. The Phillies lost to the Mets, 10-3, up in Queens. Orion Kerkering got tagged for the second straight game, letting up four more runs in the eighth, then was demoted to Triple-A after in a move that essentially exiles the struggling reliever from the roster.
They came back with a 7-2 win the next day, behind a stellar outing from ace Cristopher Sánchez that salvaged a 2-2 split in a four-game series, but with the whole weekend taken into account, it wasn't any kind of silver lining.
The Phillies are supposed to be a playoff team, and still more than likely will be, but they had four games against a Mets club living in the NL East basement right there for the taking. It was the schedule's last gimme. And yet they couldn't help but throw two of those games down the gutter, for little other reason than that they couldn't get out of their own way.
The Phillies were supposed to, or at least wanted fans to think, that they turned over a new leaf at the plate, hitting through August with the kind of small ball approach that their power-heavy lineup went out of its way to avoid for way too long, but they've since reverted back to the old habits and stubborn cold streaks that have long overstayed their welcome.
And the Phillies were supposed to have, or rather praying for, a somewhat stable bullpen after the trade deadline, but now it's so fickle and with so little time left that decisions seem destined to come down to "what starter moves into the bullpen for the postseason?"
It's been this way for five years now, through many big-money contracts that feel like they're never quite living up to the price tag, through many more failed looks at bargain-bin arms, two (and what's looking on track to be three) managerial changes, a dramatic infield shuffle mid-season, and increasingly suspect prospect development that begs an increasingly scarier question of what kind of long-term future does this club really have?
The Phillies aren't a serious baseball team. Not anymore, at least.
They're still good, sure, in the sense that they can – and again, more than likely will – qualify for a spot in October.
But really, they could've locked that spot up a week ago.
Instead, they're 8-10 through September. They punted any possible shot at the NL East title out the window once they let the Braves go 4-3 against them across their final two series, and left a Diamondbacks club that has notoriously broken their hearts before with a faint (and therefore dangerous) glimmer of hope in the final NL Wild Card chase, while leaving a best-of-three road playoff series in Atlanta as the expected prize.
And oh yeah, they do still have to play two good teams that can easily exhaust and bury them before the Phils can even think about any of what might come after.
So where really is the contender in all of this?
The Phillies can't lean on their starting pitching alone.
Certainly the Phillies are going to lean on their elite starters between Sánchez, Zack Wheeler, a revitalized Aaron Nola, and Jesús Luzardo if they can get him back in time, but at the same time, that wasn't enough against the Mets in the 2024 NLDS or the Dodgers in the 2025 division series a year later. They each countered with shutdown pitching on their side, and hung in there until the Phillies inevitably had to reach into their volatile bullpen to capitalize.
And nothing about the 2026 club suggests that this time would be any different; not when Braves and Dodgers can continue to match them beat for beat talent-wise, while having already proved that they both play much smarter games – in the field, at the plate, and even more so on the base paths – and definitely not after they just showed that they're apparently not that much further above the lowly Mets.
Brandon Marsh, who had an All-Star first half, has one extra-base hit this month.
J.T. Realmuto, once labeled the best catcher in baseball, struck out six times in the Mets series and is a .213 hitter in his mid-30s.
Luis Arráez, who has batted well above .300 for years, suddenly dipped to a .285 average as a Phillie, and while Alec Bohm is impressing with a .328 average through the month, he's never going to hit with the power many hoped for out of a former first-round draft pick at a listed 6'4" and isn't going to suddenly discover it now at age 30 while heading toward free agency.
That leaves Harper and Schwarber as the star sluggers, but at this point, as bats who can be managed around or even directly challenged, while Turner seems to perpetually volley between a $300 million force one minute and a guy who looks like he forgot how to play shortstop the next.
Here's the catch, too: the above names are either in their late 20s at their youngest or pushing well into their 30s on average, after repeated years of trying and failing to out-thump the competition, and with not many more shots expected to be left, especially now that a labor strike puts a serious threat over 2027.
Bryce Harper and the Phillies do face the threat of a closing window.
John Jones/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Phils had a great August, but that was always with a tough September schedule looming, which was always going to tell you what kind of team they really were.
And while there are still six games left, and a probable postseason clinch, there's enough of a picture to tell you this: The Phillies aren't serious.
They haven't been, and really, unless something way more drastic happened at the deadline or Crawford or Painter instantly became the new faces of the franchise, that reality was staring everyone in the face all winter – when the only noticeable difference to the lineup was that Nick Castellanos wasn't in it anymore.
Are they still good enough for October? To get there, sure...probably...hopefully, after this week?
But any further than that? No. They haven't shown anything to say otherwise, or that they're any different from the last two Phillies clubs that hit a hard stop.
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