PHILADELPHIA — They’d been through the worst of it. Through the rebuild, and the losing, and the failed prospects and the empty seats and the last four managers and the dead Octobers.
Now, after a 9-1 win, and after the Phillies surged to a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series, after they found themselves 27 outs from winning the National League Division Series in a home game less than 24 hours away, it was only fitting that homegrown cornerstones Aaron Nola and Rhys Hoskins turned out to be the Phillies that did the most work.
That pair played the largest part in winning the first playoff game at Citizens Park in 11 years. They’d earned it over the years. They’d produced with inferior teammates, produced as the Eagles won it all in 2017 and the star-studded Sixers surged past them, and they’d done it without a misstep.
They weren’t alone. Bryce Harper homered and doubled, and he’s everyone’s hero, but the loudest cheers of resurrected Red October went to Hoskins and Nola. The fans knew: Hoss and Noles had suffered along with them the past few hopeless seasons. The fans knew that Hoss and Noles hadn’t tasted the sweetness of fall ball on a South Philly night.
And so when the red handkerchiefs waved, they waved for them. When the 45,538 crazies at the Bank mocked the Braves’ Tomahawk Chop, they chopped in honor of Nola and Hoskins, who’d watched their National League East rivals win the last five division titles, including this season’s.
The Phillies? They had to slide into the postseason with a third wild card, their season’s start slowed by the presence of Joe Girardi, who was fired June 3. The Phillies then had to beat the Cardinals in a best-of-three in St. Louis, and did it in two. Nola won the clincher. The Braves got a five-day bye.
The Phillies had been gone for 14 games and 18 days, so the fans and the fellas could not have savored the reunion more.
It was magical for everyone.
Hoss
Hoskins raised his hands, screamed at his dugout, and spiked his bat. He didn’t flip it. He spiked it. Then he trotted around the bases, having turned a 1-0 lead into a 4-0 lead in the third inning with a Big Hoss swing that directed a baseball at 107.3 mph some 394 feet away.
Redemption, for the moment, was his.
Rhys Hoskins needed this. He hadn’t done much good in the playoffs; 1 for 19 with seven strikeouts, shaky at first base, as usual. Things were going poorly.
Rhys Hoskins deserved this. He’d been the voice of the Phillies for all six of his seasons, even after Harper arrived in 2019.
He’d already been booed three times Friday evening. He’d even get booed again.
Phillies fans in attending their first home playoff game in 11 years — when Hoskins was a freshman in college — booed him lightly when he was introduced before the game, residual ire from his Game 2 miscue, when he failed to field a hot grounder that led to the Braves’ win that evened the NLDS on Wednesday.
He got booed again when, as the Phillies’ No. 2 hitter, he fanned on a 98.4-mph fastball from Spencer Strider, the favorite for National League Rookie of the Year. And again, in the third, when he fell on his butt trying to pick Alec Bohm’s errant throw from third. And yet again, in the sixth, when he dropped a double-play relay that would have ended the inning and preserved Nola’s shutout.
In the third, he came to the plate insulted. The Braves had intentionally walked Kyle Schwarber, who’d led the league in homers but who, at the moment, was at least as cold as Hoskins. Bryson Stott had doubled at the end of a nine-pitch at-bat, leaving first base open, which meant the Braves were so certain of Hoskins’ failure that they were willing to risk another early run.
Rhys Hoskins needed this. Rhys Hoskins deserved this.
He got it, on a first-pitch, crippled fastball Strider dealt at the knees, down the middle of the plate. The ball left Citizens Bank Park like a scalded cat.
Stott’s at-bat framed the moment, and Schwarber’s pedigree put another duck on the pond, and J.T. Realmuto chased Strider one batter later, and Harper launched lefty reliever Dylan Lee’s first pitch — a meatball fastball — into the Harper Zone in right-center. It was 6-0 when the 10th Phillies batter finally made the third out of the third inning.
But Big Hoss’ big swing turned the momentum in Game 3.
It’s what he needed. It’s what he deserved.
Noles
Suddenly, the man who couldn’t pitch past August is making the autumn his own. Nola had a 4.60 ERA in the months of September and October and surrendered 32 home runs over his eight previous seasons.
This year, in eight starts since September began, Nola’s ERA is 1.72. He’s turned into Curt Schilling.
Nola lowered that ERA Friday. He gave up one unearned run over six innings and left one runner for Jose Alvarado, who stranded him.
Nola strode off the mound after 90 pitches to the sort of full-throated ovation Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels used to get. An ovation he’d only heard about. He wasn’t drafted until 2014, and that was two seasons after the last great Phillies roster, and three years after the team was any good. A first-rounder who crushed it in college, Nola was in the majors by 2015.
Despite playing on several teams that would’ve had trouble beating Triple-A competition and pitching in a ballpark most high school studs would dominate, Nola managed a 78-62 record with a 3.60 ERA. He lost his debut start, going six innings and surrendering one earned run. It’s been a theme.
Not Friday.
By Friday, the franchise had drastically changed. Hoskins had developed, the only homegrown bona fide slugger since Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, incredibly.
With Nola and Hoskins in place, the Phillies have spent millions since 2019 to add Harper, Realmuto, Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos. Stott’s a promising first-round rookie. They turned catcher prospect Logan O’Hoppe into center fielder Brandon Marsh, whose walk began the big third inning.
None of it would have happened if Nola and Hoskins hadn’t proved themselves worth the risk.
They paid off Friday night.
