The Phillies: One Team, 60 Years, Two Collapses, Two Postmortems

Bryce HarperPhoto byAll-Pro Reels

By Russ Walsh

And so, the Philadelphia Phillies are out of the playoffs. After a summer in which they were the best team in baseball for much of the year, finished atop the division for the first time in 13 years, and finally vanquished the Atlanta Braves, they washed out of the NLDS meekly, three games to one, to the New York Mets of all teams. While Phillies fans were left to moan and cry and wonder why, I found myself struck with a distinct sense of, “Well that was inevitable.” I think I have earned this cynicism, if that’s what it is. After all, I was a 17-year-old fanatical Phillies fan in 1964, when Philly blew a sure ride to the World Series. I’ve seen this all before, so here I offer not one, but two, postmortems (postmorti?) on my beloved, but ever frustrating Phillies.

I spent much of this baseball season, writing for this newsletter and other outlets, chronicling the 60th anniversary of the Phillies’ historic 1964 collapse. That year the Phillies, perennial National League cellar dwellers, caught fire and led the NL for 132 days. This was a seemingly magical season where Dick Allen emerged as a dynamic slugger with a Rookie of the Year performance, ace Jim Bunning threw the first perfect game in the National League since Rutherford B. Hayes was president, and matinee idol Johnny Callison hit a walk-off home run off Dick “The Monster” Radatz to win the All-Star Game for the NL.

Yes, all was wonderful in Phillies land until, leading the league by 6.5 games on Sept. 20, the Phillies reeled off 10 straight losses to cough up the pennant to the hard-charging St. Louis Cardinals of Bob Gibson and Ken Boyer. There were no wild cards in those days, so the Phillies were out. Phillies fans of a certain age still seethe with anger and resentment over the failure of that team. Many still hold on to the 1964 World Series tickets they bought, but never got to use. Most fans still blame Phillies manager Gene “The Little General” Mauch and his handling of the pitching staff for the team’s failure. You can still get into a fight in a Philly bar just by bringing up the man’s name.

The truth is, of course, more complicated than that. While legend has it that Mauch panicked and used his only two reliable starters, Bunning and Chris Short, during those 10 fateful games, the record does not bear this out. Mauch used four different starters during those games, including Art Mahaffey and Dennis Bennett, and while Bunning and Short each pitched twice on short rest, this was not uncommon at the time. The deeper issue was that the Phillies were woefully short of quality pitching. Bennett and another starter, Ray Culp, were injured. No adequate replacements were available. The Phillies also had only two reliable bullpen pieces in Jack Baldschun and Ed Roebuck. By the end of the season, the pitching staff was simply worn out.

In addition to pitching woes, the Phillies were hurt by a significant injury to an offensive player. All season, the Phillies recognized that they were vulnerable to left-handed pitching, because they had only Allen as a power threat from the right side. On Aug. 7, leading the league by just 1.5 games, they acquired first baseman Frank Thomas (no, not that Frank Thomas) from the New York Mets. Freed from the horrible Mets of the day, Thomas went on a tear and by Sept. 7 the Phillies were up by 7.5 games. The next day, Thomas broke his thumb diving back to second base and the Phillies’ offense never recovered.

With all of their problems, however, these Phillies might have held on to win the pennant except that the Cardinals got smoking hot, winning nine of 11 games. That is ultimately what cooked the Phillies’ goose. The Cardinals, at least at the end of the season, were the better team, and they rode their superior play, and their MVP Boyer and pitching dynamo Gibson, all the way to a World Series triumph over the New York Yankees. The Phillies of Mauch, Callison, Allen, Bunning, and Short never recovered.

Fast forward 60 years, and another Phillies team seemed destined for the World Series. The 2024 version of the Phillies were, on paper, a much better team than those 1964 upstarts. A team with stars like Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber should score oodles of runs. A starting rotation of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez, and the emerging Cristopher Sánchez would challenge the best of opposing lineups, and, for the first time in ages, the Phillies’ bullpen looked deep and dependable.

What could go wrong?

Apparently, everything. A Phillies team that had the best record in baseball, 62-34, at the All-Star break went 33-33 after that break. Injuries to Suárez and fifth starter Spencer Turnbull didn’t help. Nor did the trade that brought left fielder Austin Hays over from Baltimore. Still, the Phillies seemed to be the superior team going into a five-game series against the Mets, who had to sprint to the finish just to earn a Wild Card berth on the day after the final day of the season.

The Mets, however, were the hot team coming into October baseball. They had gone 42-27 since the All-Star break. They vanquished the NL Central-champion Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card Series. Pete Alonso had rediscovered his home run stroke. Francisco Lindor’s back was a little better. Mark Vientos was an emerging star.

The Phillies ran into a hot team, and they responded like a stale and soggy three-day-old soft pretzel. They simply did not hit. Superstar shortstop Turner hit .200. Schwarber smacked a leadoff home run in Game 1 and then virtually disappeared. Realmuto was 0-for-11. Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh were each 1-for-13. While starters Wheeler, Nola, Sanchez, and even the struggling Suárez all pitched well enough to win, the bullpen imploded. A combination of Jeff Hoffman, Matt Strahm and Orion Kerkering could not hold the slim lead that Wheeler handed them in Game 1. The closer, Carlos Estévez, coughed up the grand slam to Lindor that sealed the deal for the Mets in Game 4. Hoffman, so reliable all year, allowed six runs in 1 1/3 innings.

Except for a rally off Mets closer Edwin Díaz in Game 2, the Phillies never looked like they were in this series. Failure to hit will do that to a team. This team, with its tendency to chase lots of bad pitches, is prone to periods of lackluster hitting. This one came at the wrong time.

I was not able to watch the final game of the Phillies-Mets NLDS. When the event I was attending that night broke up at about 9 p.m., I checked my phone and saw that the Phillies had lost, 4-1. I shrugged. I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t upset. For this long-suffering Phillies fan, it all just seemed inevitable.

Russ Walsh is a retired teacher, baseball coach, and writer living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He is a lifelong and long-suffering Philadelphia Phillies fan. He writes for the Society for American Baseball Research and for his blog The Faith of a Phillies Fan. You can contact him through X (formerly known as Twitter) at @faithofaphilli1