Oct 8, 2024; New York City, New York, USA; Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper (3) looks on before game three against the New York Mets in the NLDS for the 2024 MLB Playoffs at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
The situation was set up perfectly for the Phillies.
Mets starter Sean Manaea, who had dazzled for the first five innings, suddenly had a spate of wildness come over him in the sixth. His manager Carlos Mendoza could feel the start slipping away from him and had gotten reliever Phil Maton up and throwing in the bullpen.
Trailing 2-0, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner worked back-to back walks against Manaea, bringing Bryce Harper to the plate with nobody out.
Harper has been so clutch in moments just like this one for the Phillies in three consecutive postseasons. Hell, it was just two days prior that he crushed a two-run homer off the batter's eye at Citizens Bank Park in the sixth inning to cut the Mets lead to 3-2.
There have been countless other moments as well. There's a reason he entered Game 3 with the third best playoff OPS in the history of baseball behind Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Maybe you've heard of them.
But in this moment, against a pitcher showing his first bit of shakiness, Harper tried to put on the Superman cape when, in reality, a little less would have been just fine.
He swung through a change up on the inner half of the zone for strike one. He chased a sweeper just off the plate for strike two.
Manaea figured, if he swung at that one, why don't we go a little further away?
The next sweeper came. It was slower than you drive on I-95. It was 79 MPH and it was in the other batters box.
It didn't matter. Harper was intent on hitting it - and missed badly.
Pitchers with three-pitch strikeouts -- all swinging strikes -- against Bryce Harper in the postseason:
Sean Manaea, 2024 NLDS Game 3
Ryne Stanek, 2022 World Series Game 3
Justin Verlander, 2022 World Series Game 1 pic.twitter.com/4Dnp8fd04F
"That's just a situation where he's trying to do too much," manager Rob Thomson said. "He's trying to put the club on his shoulders. Again, it's about passing the baton and relying on your teammates."
It's a situation where you have to read the room a bit. Manaea started the inning off by having a hard time finding the plate. Swinging at the first pitch, even though it's over the plate, seemed like a bad idea.
But fine, Harper did. And he was down 0-1. But Manaea had been sidewinding that sweeper away to both Schwarber and Harper (the only two lefties in the lineup) in previous at bats.
In the first inning Schwarber laid off two of them out of the zone. In the third inning, he only threw Schwarber one sweeper, and Schwarber swung through it, but it was just off the plate. In the sixth inning, Schwarber got one and took it for a ball.
As for Harper, he didn't see the sweeper in his first plate appearance, but in his second at bat in the third inning, he got three of them. He swung through the first, fouled off the second, and weakly hit a tapper on the third back to Manaea to ground out with two runners on base, ending the third inning. That last pitch was also off the plate, so Manaea tucked that into his back pocket for the at bat in the sixth.
"We had some situations - me personally as well - where we didn't come through," Harper said. "He made some good pitches. First pitch change up was a really good pitch to hit and then he threw me two banger sliders."
Nick Castellanos stepped up next. He fouled off two pitches - one was a ball and one was in the zone, and then he lined a change up off the plate to second base, where Jose Iglesias was perfectly positioned. Iglesias caught it, and flipped to Francisco Lindor to double Schwarber off of second.
Inning over. Manaea off the hook.
The next three outs in the seventh inning came on a total of seven pitches.
Manaea pitched into the eighth inning and threw just 91 pitches to 26 batters. The Phillies averaged just 3.5 pitches per batter.
It gets worse.
Schwarber saw 20 of those 91 pitches. That means the other 25 batters saw just 71 pitches from Manaea - an average of 2.8 per batter.
Alec Bohm, back in the lineup after getting benched in Game 2, went 1-for-4, but his one hit was unproductive as Tyrone Taylor nailed him trying to stretch the hit into a double. It was a perfect throw, as Bohm hit the ball to the wall, however a head-first slide may have avoided the tag.
This was an insane play from Tyrone Taylor to cut down Alec Bohm at second base. That was a no-doubt double off the bat. Hustle from Taylor, plus an 87-mph throw to get him. pic.twitter.com/jRN2XfAf09
Still, in those four at bats, Bohm saw just five pitches. He put the ball in play on the first pitch three times.
The impatience is something that has become a bit of a chronic problem for the Phillies and is likely contributing to their lack of production.
"Sometimes it's about chase in certain games, but sometimes the fact that guys are throwing strikes, you need to get good pitches that you want and use the middle of the diamond," Thomson said. " That's what I always talk about. Again, they try to do too much."
Schwarber said sometimes you have to credit the pitcher, and if he's throwing strikes you can't just sit there and get behind 0-1 all night. And that's a fair point. But these Phillies, over the past three years, one of their hallmarks has been the ability to work a starter, get him out of the game early, and get into a team's bullpen. That would be ideal against the Mets, whose bullpen is their greatest weakness.
And yet, the Phillies haven't done that other than for a few innings in Game 2.
"If you look at the at bats at the end of the game, there were some grindy at bats," Schwarber said. "That's the way that we are. But Manaea was really in the zone with his fastball early, and then it was kind of setting everything up after that. Tomorrow (Jose Quintana) is another guy that pitches off the fastball and goes and sets other things up from there, So, you know, it's going to be on us."
Of course it is. The hitters have no one else to point the finger at but themselves for these over-eager approaches.
"We're trying to find a way to win a baseball game," Schwarber said. "We're not going to get there by being in an 0-2 count. That's the biggest thing, right? We're not going to put ourselves in a statistical disadvantage. We're going with our eyes. That's the game. If he's in the zone we're going to try to put our best swing on it. And if we feel it's a ball we got to do our best to try and take that pitch and work the count, right? There's no way around it. It's a simple game, but when you're out there and you're doing it and you're in the heat of it, it's easier said than done."
Fair, but there's no more wiggle room. It has to get done. Or the season that once had so much promise will be an abject failure.
