WASHINGTON — Most of the Phillies were already gone from the clubhouse to catch the team bus. But for the benefit of any stragglers, Kyle Schwarber took it up an octave.
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“It’s going to be a grind,” he said here the other night. “It’s not like it’s guaranteed.”
Not even when it should be a walk in the park — or lots of walks in Nationals Park. Not for these Phillies. Not with 10 games left and a playoff spot still to be clinched.
Case in point: Wednesday night. The Phillies knocked a rookie opener from the game after six batters. They worked seven walks through four innings, including four in the first — and 13in all, their highest total in a game in … checks notes … 22 years.
And yet they ground out only a 3-0victory over the Nationals behind seven workmanlike innings from old reliable Zack Wheeler, once again the most effective and healthiest of the Phillies’ Big Three starters.
“It’s win games and get in the playoffs at this point, so they’re all must-win,” said Alec Bohm, who drove in the first run with a bases-loaded single and reached five times (two hits, three walks). “We just want it in our control. We win, then it’s in our control. If we don’t win, we’re scoreboard-watching and who knows what can happen.”
Cue the nightly check of the playoff race:
The Phillies (84-68) remained a half-game behind the (85-68) Cubs for the top National League wild card. The Phillies were 1½ games clear of the Padres (82-69), pending their result in Colorado, for the last wild card.
With any combination of seven victories or Diamondbacks losses, the Phillies will clinch a wild card.
Chicago, which holds a tiebreaker over the Phillies, is off Thursday. The Phillies will begin a four-game series in New York against the out-of-contention Mets, who have played better after a brutal first half.
Got all that? Good.
NL wild-card standings
The Phillies are struggling to reach base at last month’s majors-leading clip. But even they couldn’t avoid taking what the Nationals gave them in the first inning, chiefly enough walks to score twice.
And Wheeler took it from there.
One day after Jesús Luzardo went on the injured list with an inflamed left shoulder and Cristopher Sánchez gave up five runs on eight hits in a loss, Wheeler was in command against the Nationals, third in the majors in runs despite being headed for their seventh consecutive losing season.
Wheeler said he sought to exploit the young Nationals by throwing pitches off the plate early in the count “to try to use their aggressiveness against them.” It worked. He held them to four hits (three singles) and completed seven innings in 91 pitches.
“I threw a lot of first-pitch balls, but that was kind of on purpose just to see if I could get weak contact,” Wheeler said. “If I was going in, I was trying to throw it off the plate. If I was going away, I was trying to make them chase a ball or two off the plate.”
Luis Arraez doubled in Bryce Harper for insurance in the seventh inning. Arraez reached four times, including his first three-walk game since 2024. Maybe it all gets the offense refocused. Maybe it was one game.
Say this: Bohm has hoisted his average above .250 for the first time since the third game of the season. He’s batting .293 against lefties, including .500 since the beginning of August.
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“I was in a pretty deep hole early on,” Bohm said. “For me, it was focusing less on what’s my batting average today and more on let’s go out and try to win a game today. Because the numbers are what they are. Can’t really do much about it at this point, so let’s try to go help the team win and contribute in some way.
“Getting lost in that for a while, they’ve found their way back to, I guess, more of the norm for myself.”
It’s a mature outlook for a player who has often been criticized for immaturity. But it’s undoubtedly the correct one in the second-to-last week of the season.
At this late juncture, interim manager Don Mattingly is still trying to bring order to the bullpen. He put the lead in the unsteady hands of lefty José Alvarado, who sidestepped a one-out walk by getting dangerous James Wood to line out and Daylen Lile to fly out.
Jhoan Duran, who hadn’t pitched in five days, went to a full count on the leadoff batter in the ninth before striking him out. He popped up CJ Abrams to win a seven-pitch duel before ending the game with a strikeout.
The whole thing was imperfect. The Phillies went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. They left 13 on base. They became the first team since the Tigers on June 8, 1955, to walk at least 13 times and score three runs or less in a nine-inning game.
“I look at it as, we won tonight,” Mattingly said. “That’s what I look at. No matter how we do it, we got the win. So, that’s really what matters at the end of the day.”
Indeed. And in winning for only the second time in six games, they crossed Game 152 off the calendar in their quest to just get into the playoffs, reset everything, and take their chances.
“After losing [Tuesday] night, we had to come out here with a win today,” Wheeler said. “I was just trying to do the best that I could and at least split.”
It wasn’t easy, even though the Nationals tried to make it so. And it isn’t about to get easier, just as Schwarber warned.
The Phillies and Braves are set to square off again this weekend in Atlanta, so it’s the perfect time to check in with Jeff Francoeur, who played for both teams and calls Braves games on TV and radio. Francoeur joined Phillies Extra to help break down the race for NL East supremacy. Watch here.
You can also subscribe to the podcast version of Phillies Extra on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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