The Philadelphia Phillies are not the same team from a month ago. The personnel didn’t change; the players, coaching staff, and front office are identical. But they’re somehow a different club anyway.
How exactly did that happen?
They’ve morphed from a team that fired its manager in June and finished the regular season 87-75 — losing eight of its final 12 games — to postseason darlings. From an uninspiring, underachieving bunch to a civic treasure fueling a feverish city. They lost Game 5 of the World Series to the Houston Astros on Thursday, putting them on the brink of elimination Saturday, but it’s a position they gladly would’ve taken after Game 162.
How exactly did that happen?
“I can’t really explain it,” Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos said. “We’re a much better team now in October than we were during the regular season.”
Across the country, the Dodgers are attempting to figure out the opposite.
They were a much worse team when games mattered. They posted the best record in the majors with a franchise-record 111 wins. They compiled the best run-differential by any team since 1939. They were the championship favorites.
Then the Dodgers lost in four games in the National League Division Series to a division opponent that the previous six months indicated was vastly inferior. The Dodgers were 14-5 against the San Diego Padres during the regular season. They won 22 more regular-season games. None of it mattered.
Their postseason lasted five days because their offense crumbled with runners in scoring position and the bullpen imploded in the seventh inning in Game 4.
“The question is: Is it baseball?” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman asked three days after the season-ending defeat. “Or are there things we can do to improve upon that? Are there levers we can pull, are there things to put us in a better position there?”
In other words, was it just bad luck or could the Dodgers have done something to avoid the disappointment?
Friedman and other officials around the majors have echoed the notion that the postseason is effectively a crapshoot. That most years it’s just about which team gets the hottest at the right time. That predicting postseason fortunes is all but impossible in these small sample sizes. Just last year, for example, the 88-win Atlanta Braves won the World Series.
The Phillies recognized the history, and saw an opportunity.
“All we wanted was to get in the postseason because you never know what could happen in the postseason,” Phillies starter Aaron Nola said. “Teams get hot that may not be hot during the regular season later in the year. That was kind of our mindset: ‘Let’s just get in and see what happens.’ ”
The Phillies’ first break was making the postseason at all. They secured the sixth and final NL playoff spot — an entry that didn’t exist until this year after the postseason format was expanded from 10 to 12 teams.
From there, a few factors can perhaps explain the Phillies’ unexpected success.
First, the Phillies are not a small-market underdog story. Their $242-million payroll was the fourth highest in the majors behind the New York Mets, Dodgers, and New York Yankees after owner John Middleton bankrolled another aggressive offseason in search of the club’s first postseason appearance since 2011.
The team signed Castellanos and outfielder Kyle Schwarber during the winter. It re-signed catcher J.T. Realmuto. The three All-Stars were added to a roster that already featured Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, Zack Wheeler and Nola. Middleton was committed to paying the luxury tax expecting to compete for a championship.
But the Phillies started the season 22-29, prompting president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski to fire manager Joe…
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