Nov. 1, 2022.
The Phillies led the Houston Astros 2-1. The Astros swept through the American League Division Series and Championship Series, defeating the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees in three and four games, respectively.
It couldn’t get any better. The momentum was in their hands, with a newly constructed roster and Bryce Harper at the helm. Back in the postseason for the first time since 2011, they were here and their October was red after crawling from the Wild Card.
They then lost three straight to drop the World Series. Ever since, they’ve been eliminated in reverse order.
In 2023, they lost in seven games to the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 2024 and 2025, they lost in the Division Series against the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers, respectively.
This year, they lost to the Atlanta Braves in the Wild Card Series. The Braves hadn’t changed their roster much from the team the Phillies beat in 2023, the same core of Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acuña Jr., Michael Harris II and Sean Murphy.
Let’s walk it back a bit, starting in 2022.
The 2021-2022 offseason was marked by spending after a period of inactivity. The infamous 99-day lockout, caused by the collective bargaining agreement not being renewed, pushed back Opening Day and barred teams from making transactions until March 10, 2022.
Phillies general manager Dave Dombrowski essentially went on a talent-shopping spree. He grabbed Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos, two days apart.
The core contained Harper, Castellanos, Schwarber and catcher J.T. Realmuto, all in the same lineup. Despite the hype, the first two months of the season were less than stellar. By the end of May, they were 21-29 and the offense looked out of sync. The bullpen routinely blew games and the front office soon fired manager Joe Girardi.
When Rob Thomson took over as the interim, the season flipped, with a player-friendly energy in the clubhouse. They went 65- 46 the rest of the way, finishing 87-75. They slid right into the Wild Card and, as mentioned, rode that momentum and underdog energy to the World Series, where they lost three games after taking a 2-1 lead.
After that, in the 2022-2023 offseason, the Cinderella story turned into a championship-or-bust narrative. Dombrowski signed Trea Turner to an 11-year, $300 million contract. They also brought in Craig Kimbrel and Taijuan Walker. The message was clear as expectations were set. However, in the first couple of months of the season, Turner wasn’t performing well, posting 235/.290/.368. He had only 10 home runs and 34 RBIs at that point.
Then, in a turn of events, the Philly crowd gave him a standing ovation on Aug. 4th. A crowd known for being hostile enough to boo Santa showed up to support the player signed to a massive contract. Since then, Turner had slashed a line of .337/.389/.668, with 16 home runs for the rest of the regular season. Harper returned from Tommy John surgery quickly as the Phillies made the playoffs.
In one of the most memorable playoff series of the 2020s, the Phillies blew out the Atlanta Braves, who had 104 wins that season, winning the division series 3-1. Game 1 was a 3-0 shutout in Atlanta, highlighted by Harper’s home run off league strikeout leader Spencer Strider. Game 2 ended on an 8-5-3 double play, as Harris II robbed a hit at the wall and doubled off a stranded Harper.
After Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia taunted Harper in the clubhouse, Harper responded in Game 3 with two home runs, staring down Arcia on the basepaths. The Phillies sealed the series in Game 4, shaking Strider again, as Castellanos made history with multi-homer games in consecutive postseason contests.
However, in the NLCS, the Diamondbacks were also riding their own heat wave. After sweeping the Dodgers, in which Clayton Kershaw was snake-bitten after one out, they were also ready for the moment. However, Philly had defeated them twice, including a 10-0 blowout in Game 2. However, in Games 3 and 4, Kimbrel became infamous for giving up key hits that let the snakes fight back. After the Phillies won Game 5, they dropped both home games, something they hadn’t done before in that postseason run. Castellanos went silent as the Arizona bullpen helped secure their ticket to the World Series.
The Phillies kept their hitting core mostly intact for 2024, extending Aaron Nola while letting Rhys Hoskins and Kimbrel walk. They captured their first NL East title since 2011 but fell to the Mets in four games in the Division Series after a bye week.
They won the division again in 2025, and for Philadelphia fans, it was a 162-game waiting game to see if the bats would hold up in high-leverage postseason play. Unfortunately, they lost in the most heartbreaking way possible: young reliever Orion Kerkering threw a pitch that allowed the Dodgers to walk it off and end the Phillies’ season. The defining image wasn’t a strikeout; it was MLB veterans consoling their young reliever as the Dodgers celebrated nearby.
In the offseason, they had signed World Series champion Adolis García, immediately making Castellanos’s job in right field unsecured. The team had spent all winter trying to trade him, but in February they designated him for assignment and then released him.
The regular season had them at 9-19, an MLB worst at the time, including a 10-game losing streak, their longest since 1999. They fired Thompson and installed interim manager Don Mattingly. They barely snuck into the Wild Card to match up against an already unchallenged Braves hitting core, with their most notable addition since then being Chris Sale, who won the Cy Young award while with the Braves. Even though the Phillies pulled off a miraculous comeback in Game 2, it wasn’t enough to secure Game 3, especially with a Nola implosion that brought Sale out of the bullpen and sent the Phillies home for good.
Four years after coming within two wins of baseball’s ultimate peak, the Phillies walked all the way down the stairs and straight out the front door. The looming question this offseason is whether this backward postseason progression will bring any changes.