Listen to Bryce Harper, and listen well. Last season, as memorable as it was for the Phillies, is over. Gone. Done. History.
“I’ve kind of said it’s a new team,” Harper said before Sunday’s game in Oakland. “It’s a new group, a whole different group of guys. That’s kind of how I feel about it.”
OK, fair enough. But wait ... did you hear that? The walls are thin in the dank bowels of Oakland Coliseum, but it sure sounded like the house beat of “Dancing On My Own” — the Phillies’ 2022 victory anthem — piercing out from the visiting clubhouse all weekend long.
In fact, it was Harper who first brought back the song in the batting cage in Washington on June 3, according to multiple sources. And later that night, after the Phillies bucked a five-game skid, Harper paused from his page-turning to tell backup catcher/team DJ Garrett Stubbs to turn up the full October playlist, which has blared after 13 of the last 15 games amid a June surge that uncannily resembles last year — minus the managerial change, of course — and will carry into a pivotal week against the rival Braves and Mets.
The whole thing is so very ... dare we say it ... 2022.
“It’s a good playlist, right?” Harper said, chuckling. “So we’ll keep the playlist going.”
Look, nobody is suggesting the Phillies planned it this way. Just because they pulled out of a 21-29 tailspin last June to finish 87-75 and clinch a wild-card berth in Game 160 doesn’t mean they intended to follow the same plot arc in the sequel.
But John McClane didn’t know when he walked into the airport at the beginning of Die Hard 2 that he’d have to squelch another terrorist group. It was a good thing, then, that he could call on his previous experience in the Nakatomi Plaza crisis.
The point is, 2022 was always there for the Phillies to draw on, never more than when they started 25-32 and fell into a tie for last place. So, as much as they — like every pennant-winner that came before them — insisted they were moving on, they left New York after getting swept by the Mets on June 1 and began to actually lean into last season rather than turning away from it.
“I mean, it was good vibes last year, right?” Zack Wheeler said. “It was a good time. We definitely have not really spoken about how we’re leaning on it here, but I’m guessing in the back of our head it’s there — ‘We’ve been here, we know what we have to do,’ that type of stuff.”
Not just the playlist
There are on-field explanations for the Phillies’ latest June revival. Start with the starting pitching. In the last 15 games, the rotation has a 1.74 ERA with 93 strikeouts, 22 walks, and three homers allowed in 88 innings. Wheeler, Ranger Suárez, and Taijuan Walker have dominated, with 0.47, 0.90, and 0.45 ERAs, respectively, in their last three starts.
And just like last June, Kyle Schwarber has kick-started the offense after being reinstalled in the leadoff spot. Over the last 16 games, he has seven homers, including four to lead off a game, a .667 slugging percentage, and a 1.061 OPS. J.T. Realmuto has five homers and a 1.141 OPS in his last 13 games. Trea Turner has perked up, too, after a dismal start.
Harper suggested an overall shift in the team’s mindset, with some players refocusing their frustrations over their individual numbers into more team-oriented goals.
“A couple guys start out slow, a couple other guys aren’t playing to their caliber, and you all kind of sit there and go, ‘OK, what can we do as a team to be better? How can I do my job best to help the team win?’” Harper said. “I think that’s what makes good teams really good, when everybody takes their personal things out of it, when guys take personal at-bats or the way they’re playing and just make it a team thing.”
But it also didn’t hurt to change the mood after a fifth consecutive loss on June 2. So, when Harper walked into the batting cage the next day, he cranked up the Phillies’ favorite song.
“I put it on, and every guy that came down, it put a big smile on everybody’s face,” Harper said. “And then I kind of told Stubbsy, ‘All right, if we keep this going, just keep playing the song or just completely put the playlist back on.’ He was like, ‘Are you sure?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, just do it.’ Why not have it as a Phillies song? If you play for the Phillies, you know it’s going to be our song.”
Whatever works, right?
Staying calm
But it’s more about what the song represents. Schwarber figures the experience of last season enabled the Phillies to remain calm amid the wretched start. Of the 37 players that manager Rob Thomson has used, 20 were with the club at some point in 2022.
So, for all the predictable external reactions to a nearly $250 million roster being seven games under .500 — Shake up the lineup! Call a team meeting! Fire the manager! — Schwarber said he always sensed an appropriate amount of urgency without a trace of panic from among his teammates.
“I think the biggest thing was, we weren’t playing to what we wanted to play to, but we have experience on how to kind of pull ourselves back out,” Schwarber said. “If that’s bringing back the song or whatever it is, having fun with each other, then that’s what we needed to do. We’re not trying to put ourselves in that situation, but we had the experience last year and it’s good to lean back on, as well.”
Even Harper is able to acknowledge that. Maybe falling back on last season really can help the Phillies to continue their surge. Entering the week, they’re one game out of a wild-card spot and eight behind the division-leading Braves.
“It’s really tough to count on it happening each year,” Harper said. “You don’t ever want to go into a season and be like, ‘Oh yeah, we can start mediocre and then we’re going to turn it around.’ It’s just understanding, let’s not really look back and lean, but let’s take the good things that we did do at that time, understanding our mindset and things that kind of played into last year, and put it toward this year as well.”
