PHILADELPHIA – So when did you know that one of the wildest (and weirdest) postseason baseball games of modern times had officially erupted Saturday night in the decibel capital of the world, South Philadelphia?
It was the sight of Both teams’Are starting pitchers still asking for directions on how to use the shower knobs in the first inning?
Or was it the thrilling ride on the fifth-inning Tilt A-Whirl? Juan SotoThis seemed like a dagger from a go-ahead homeowner for the Padres in the top of the fifth … and then the Phillies went walk-homer-walk-double-single, to paint a four-spot on the board in the bottom of the fifth, as 45,467 euphoric people blitzed through what was left of their vocal cords?
Or was it possibly the next two innings, as the Phillies kept mashing statement home runs into the electrified evening sky … and the next thing you knew, the scoreboard read: Phillies 10, Padres 6, … and the Phillies — Wait, Phillies! — Three games were up and one loss away from the World Series.
Think as long and hard about those questions as you’d like. But there’s no wrong answer. Game 4 of the 2022 National League Championship Series was a certifiable upside-down postseason classic. So let’s relive it now, in our customary Weird and Wild fashion, starting with …
1. The starters: Now ya see them, now ya don’t
If you ran to the bathroom, you might have missed Bailey Falter’s start. (Eric Hartline/USA Today).
We have good news and bad news for the two starting pitchers in this game — Bailey Falter(Phillies) Mike Clevinger (Padres). The good news is that history will always recall what they did in this match. The bad news? History will always remember what happened in this game.
Falter’s day: Four runs, two outs. Amazingly, He was the greatest starting pitcher.
Clevinger’s day: 3 runs no outs. That was it.
We are done. These games are almost never possible. This is not the time of year. No, not any other time of the year. Let me try my best to show how absurd this was.
They got two outs together! This was the 170th postseason game of baseball history. So it isn’t easy for something — anything — to happen that hasn’t happened in any of the previous 1,734. These two men did it. What other postseason games featured two starting pitchers collecting a trophy? Total Are there two possible answers? That would be … none!
Two Outs Combined 2.0 — Then again, it’s not as if that’s a thing that happens every day in the regular season, either. Was it this year? It didn’t. What happened last year? Nope. Nope. Sorry. The 2000s No. The 1990s? ’Fraid not.
Two starting pitchers have never combined for this many runs in a regular-season game. It happened 30 years ago. Jack Armstrong, for the Reds(no outs and five runs) against Dennis Rasmussen (also no outs, 5 runs).
But I kept going — and found that over the last 45 regular seasons, there was only One There is no other regular-season game similar to this. It was also the Phillies’ last chance to win it. It was also the last time it happened to the Phillies. Everyday played:
May 17, 1979 at Wrigley Field. aka The legendary 23-22 game: CubsDennis Lamp, the starting pitcher, was able to get one out (and allowed six runs). The Phillies starter Randy Lerch struck out Lamp with a home run in the top of first. But, he got one out in his next at-bat (allowing five runs). It’s incredible how often that game springs back to life in columns like this. It is rare that this happens in the wake of a postseason match. But now back to the action Saturday, because …
It’s also weird (and wild) when Neither starter makes it through the first inning! Also, I have mentioned recently that The first inning ended without a starter.? Once again, that’s not a regular thing any time of year. This is especially true in October.
This was the first postseason game in which neither starting pitcher got more than two outs since … The Herbert Hoover administration! We’re talking Game 4 of the 1932 World Series: Guy Bush (one out) versus Johnny Allen (two outs). Yikes!
But once again, it’s not as if that’s a weekly occurrence in the regular season, either, even in the age of The Opener. In fact, since that 1989 Reds-Padres game, there has been just one regular-season game that meets this description — and it didn’t even happen in North America.
It was Yankees-Red Sox, in a British pinball machine of a ballpark in London, on June 29, 2019: Rick Porcello (one out, six runs) versus Masahiro Tanaka (two outs six runs), in what would turn into a neat little 17-13 pitchers’ duel. But that’s the only game like it in the last three decades, It was a Saturday playoff game in Philadelphia that saw it happen.. Unreal.
In a moment, we’ll explore the rarity of having a team Win a postseason game when its starting pitcher doesn’t make it through the first inning. But first …
WEIRD AND WILD “Have you played in a lot of games where your starting pitcher got knocked out in the first inning and you still won?”
KYLE SCHWARBER “I don’t know, man. Just, for us to do that, it’s nice.”
W&W: “Well, I’m sure you haven’t played in a lot of games where Both starters got knocked out in the first inning.”
SCHWARBER: “I don’t know on that, either. That might be another stat you have to find.”
W&W: “Good news. I’m on the case.”
2. After the first-inning KO, there is still life
Manny Machado and four runs were scored by the Padres in the first inning. But the Phillies responded. (Eric Hartline/USA Today).
After the shock had subsided, the game continued without incident. Any starting pitchers that were clogging the mound made it clear that something was very wrong.
One of these teams was actually going to win — this postseason game in which its starting pitcher was bombed in the first inning.
That’s a pretty weird (and also wild) formula for winning a pivotal NLCS game. It was going to take someone to do it. Those are the rules.
As you all know, the Phillies were that team. This made for some more unusual and wild oddities that kept this column in operation.
Vic Aldridge, the ghost! As soon as the Phillies absorbed the Padres’ four-run haymaker in the top of the first and threw a three-spot up there in the bottom of the first, I lurched into furious research, just to find …
Last team to win a postseason match in which its starter got less than two outs and was unable to score, fell behind 4-0 in the top of the second inning.
And that answer was … Stuffy McInnis’ 1925 Pirates, in Game 7 of the ’25 World Series. Yes, I said 1925!
Pirates starter Vic Aldridge gave up four runs and got just one out against Muddy Ruel’s 1925 Washington Senators. The Pirates piled on the runs. Nine Walter Johnson won Game 7, and the World Series. It’s amazing how incomprehensible it is that no team ever followed this script to win a postseason game. It was 97 Years Later!
David Cone, too! Thank you to MLB.com’s Paul Casella, who dug up the only other postseason game (before Saturday) in which a team fell behind, 4-0 or worse, in the top of the first inning but still won. That was Ramiro Mendoza’s 1997 YankeesHe beat a David Cone ALDS Game 1 clunker with five runs in the top. Cleveland, 8-6.
Cone doesn’t technically make this Bailey Falter pitch-alike list, though, because manager Joe Torre let him pitch into the fourth inning that day. I thought you should know. But also …
From meltdown, to blowout! Finally, here’s one more unlikely turn of events. This game was won by the Phillies, who trailed by four runs. It was won by him in four runs..
The great Sarah Langs, of MLB.com, went hunting for the list of teams to do that in a postseason game — and it won’t take long to recite it. She discovered that only three teams have ever won a playoff game. More Runs after falling behind by at most four:
• 1921 Giants — Eighteen won Game 3 in the World Series
• 2021 White Sox — By six, won Game 3 of ALDS
• 1956 Dodgers — Five players won Game 2 in the World Series
But just to serve you up a list like that doesn’t do a comeback like this justice. This is the Phillies team creating a postseason script outside the box. Do we take this for granted? We shouldn’t. This requires the ability to channel emotions, keep focus and apply pressure to the team.
Weird and Wild: “Is there a secret to channeling that emotion and finding so many different ways to win?”
SCHWARBER: “Trust me. When you’re in this kind of format, this is the purest form of baseball there is, and wins is what it’s all about. So at the end of the day, you’re just trying to find a way to win. And if you make a great play, you have a great at-bat, you make a great pitch, it’s any way you can do it.”
But then again, it always helps when …
3. Home runs are flying
The Phillies’ leadoff man (Schwarber) hit another gargantuan home run, sending an exploratory lumber mission into the Citizens Bank Park Forest in dead center field. This was in the sixth.
It wouldn’t be possible! @Phillies #postseasonGame without a SCHWARBOMB pic.twitter.com/Y6VI4ycjIr
— MLB (@MLB) October 23, 2022
The No. 3 hitter, J.T. RealmutoFinally, he was able to work his first job. outside-the-park homer In his postseason repertoire. This was in the seventh.
Double digits for Phils! #postseason pic.twitter.com/73yHpSXYka
— MLB (@MLB) October 23, 2022
But those were two home runs that “only” added to the lead after the Phillies had grabbed it for good in the fifth inning. It was the No. 2 hitter, Rhys Hoskins, who played the role of Padres dream crusher — with two ballpark-rattling long balls that served as thunderous answers to huge Padres rallies staged just moments before.
After the Padres hung that “four” on the board in the top of the first, Hoskins whomped Clevinger’s 10th pitch of the night deep into the left-field lower deck. It was more than just a two-run homer. It was like Steph Curry hitting a 35-foot three pointer from three feet four seconds after a LeBron dunk.
Hoskins then did it again in fifth inning. Juan Soto’s two-run homer had just shot the Padres back into the lead. And faster than you could say, “fish tacos,” Hoskins had pumped another two-run homer through the Philly sky. The game was tied and the Padres would not lead again.
THIS GAME IS TIED AGAIN! #Postseason pic.twitter.com/dnE50JRuWW
— MLB (@MLB) October 23, 2022
So what’s so Weird and Wild about all that? Here’s what.
They did the 1-2-3. It isn’t every day that a team’s 1-2-3 hitters hit home runs in a postseason game. Matter of fact, if you’re talking about Phillies history, it hasn’t been Any day.
This was the first postseason match in franchise history to feature this feat. But that, too, isn’t really the Weird and Wild part — because until Saturday, the Phillies had never even had their 1-2-3 hitters all homer In the same postseason series, let alone game! But then they all did it, in the middle of this game, in a span of 11 hitters, because … baseball!
Let’s count to 1-2-3 one more time. But another cool subplot here is that the Phillies didn’t merely have all three hitters at the top of their order homer once. Hoskins’ double-dip meant they’d combined for Four homers. Sarah Langs believes that they are in even more exclusive company.
POSTSEASON GAMES WITH 4+ HR FROM 1-2-3 SPOTS*
• 1973 A’s, ALCS Game 2 (Sal Bando 2 Bert Campaneris 1, Joe Rudi 1)
• 2022 Phillies, NLCS Game 4 (Hoskins 2, Schwarber 1, Realmuto 1)
(*-with the 1-2-3 hitters all homering at least once)
Hoskins’ daily double. Finally, there’s Hoskins’ one remaining claim to fame. He was the only Phillies player to hit two homers during a postseason game, joining Chase Utley (twice), Jayson Valueh (twice), Ryan Howard (twice), Pat Burrell, Lenny Dykstra and Ryan Howard. He was actually part of an exclusive group of Phillies that hit two homers in a postseason game. Multi-run homers In a postseason contest. It won’t take long to rip through that group, either:
• Lenny DykstraIn Game 4 of 1993 World Series (also known as the 15-14 game).
• Ryan Howard In Game 4 of 2008 World Series.
• Rhys Hoskins In Game 4 in the 2022 NLCS.
WEIRD AND WILD: “Rhys Hoskins told you last night that he expected to see you hit another homer today. You did. So do you expect him to hit two tomorrow?
SCHWARBER:“Ha. It’s hard to hit two. It’s hard to hit ONE. But let’s just say I’d be really OK with that.”
4. It’s a Game 4 thing
There are some bizarre October baseball games. There are also Game 4s.
So, Saturday afternoon I was about to order lunch for Game 4 when my phone rang.
“Maybe you’ve already researched this,” my friend Pat Gallen, of CBS3 in Philadelphia, texted. “But it feels like historically, Game 4s are the weirdest.”
By game time, we’d decided there was something to that theory. But by the end of the first inning, we’d seen enough of this wacky postseason classic to Know We were on to something. You can see that most teams have begun to tap into the portion of their pitching staff by Game 4. Hey, someone must pitch! And how often does that produce games like Saturday’s?
I just looked at the four last Game 4s in Philadelphia’s best-of-7 series. I think you’ll see what we mean.
GAME 4, 1993 WORLD SERIES — Welcome to The 15-14 Games. This game was insane! Al Leiter scored a double for the Blue Jays, and he wasn’t even their starting pitcher. This game was insane! The Phillies held two separate five-run lead positions of five runs in the first, second and fourth innings. They lost..
GAME 4, 2008 WORLD SERIES — We mentioned earlier that Ryan Howard’s only postseason two-homer game came in this one. But the Weird and Wild highlight was a home run by the Phillies’ starting pitcher, Joe Blanton, a man who not only never hit another homer, but also never hit even one regular-season extra-base hit despite batting 262 times over 13 seasons.
GAME 4, 2009 NLCS — This one is called The Jimmy Rollins Game. It ended with a walk-off double run by Rollins. Dodgers’Jonathan Broxton. But we’ve been talking about it all month for other reasons. Remember when Yordan AlvarezHit His home run shaming against Seattle was his walk-off stunnerWhat is the ALDS? It was the first postseason win that had been turned into an exhilarating win through a lead-flipping Walk-Off. Anything Since … that Rollins double.
GAME 4, 2009 WORLD SERIES — The madness was repeated three and half hours later. Two times the Yankees had multi-run leads. It was tied twice by the Phillies. The Yankees then scored a run ninth against Brad Lidge and won it. However, the Weird and Wild highlight was that ninth inning. Johnny Damon stole second and three bases. The same pitch.
That was the beginning of history. This was the beginning of this game. It fit the profile. And that’s why the Padres’ four-run lead had barely finished disappearing when this text from Gallen shook my phone:
It’s like we saw this coming!
5. Party of Five
Hey, don’t turn up the lights. It’s not time to go yet. My notebooks are full of Wildness and Weirdness from this game. Is it really worth missing it? Of course you don’t.
Bryce Harper was 2 for 4, with two doubles, and two RBIs in Game 4. (Eric Hartline/USA Today).
THE BRYCE IS RIGHT — Bryce Harper’s first October with Philly has been something to behold, but especially because of this:
10 games, 10 extra base hits
Did you know that only five other players have ever pounded 10 extra base hits in 10 games during the same postseason? How ’bout this group.
• Carlos Beltrán, 2004 11 XBH
• Willie Stargell, 1979, 11
• Enrique Hernández, 2021, 10
• Hideki Miatsui 2004, 10
• Fred McGriff 1995, 10
• Bryce Harper 1995, 10
FOUR TO SCORE — Let’s recap what we’ve seen in this series just since Wednesday.
Game 2 — Four runs ahead of the Padres Rejoice to win.
Game 4 — The Phillies trail four runs early and are unable to recover to win.
So I started to think. I’ve seen a lot of postseason games. I don’t recall anything quite like that. It’s amazing what happens when you start asking questions. I asked STATS Perform my friends how many other postseason shows have featured any team. You are the winner a game it trailed by four runs but also Losing A game it won by four runs
Turns out there was a reason I couldn’t recall anything like it — because, according to STATS, it’s never happened. This means that this is the first occasion in history when both teams lose games by letting four-run lead disappear in the same series. Wow.
WELCOME TO THE NO-OUT CLUB, MIKE — Mike Clevinger joined a lot of people Saturday. He’s now one of 10 starting pitchers who made a postseason start We had zero outs. Here’s the whole list (because why the heck not):
• Reb Russell (White Sox), 1917 World Series
• Charlie Root (Cubs), 1935 World Series
• Hank Borowy (Cubs), 1945 World Series
• Harry Taylor (Dodgers), 1947 World Series
• Bob Moose(Pirates), 1972 NLCS
• Dennis Leonard (Royals), 1976 ALCS
• Bob Welch (Dodgers), 1981 World Series
• Al Leiter (Mets), 1999 NLCS
• Wade Miley (Brewers), 2017 NLCS
• Mike Clevinger (Padres), Saturday
SWEET HOME PHILADELPHIA — As we mentioned a day ago in this column, the Phillies haven’t spent much time in Philadelphia over the last four weeks. But in the four games they’ve been permitted to play there by the proper authorities, they’ve reminded us of something important:
In their four home games at Citizens Bank Park in this postseason, they’re hitting .313/.384/.626 — and they’ve scored 31 runs in four games. Here’s the complete list of teams that have fired off that slash line and that many runs scored over their first four home games of any postseason, according to Baseball Reference/Stathead:
1999 Red Sox (47 runs!)
2022 Phillies (31 runs)
(End of the list)
IN OTHER NEWS — I just thought you’d want to know that …
Austin Nola, Padres catcher in this NLCS: 1 for 2 against his brother (Aaron), 0 for 14 against pitchers he’s not related to.
Juan Soto struck a home run! Hadn’t seen that in a while in October. His last homer in the postseason: Game 6 (2019 World Series), a two run lead-flipper. Justin Verlander. He won that game more than he did this one.
Bailey Falter during the first inning of this regular season67 batters faced. No home runs allowed. Two extra-base hits were allowed throughout the season. Bailey Falter in the first inning Saturday: Um, don’t ask!
Jean Segura in the NLCSPitches 1 for 1 One foot beyond the ground, and one foot below itFor pitches that are actually in the strike zone, it is 1 for 13.
Segura is also a good choice. This is a leftover from Game 3. But according to MLB Network’s amazing research department, in the fourth inning of Friday is the day!, he became the first player in postseason history to …
• Make an error.
• Drive in a run.
• And get picked off.
• All in the same inning!
It might seem impossible to fit all this stuff in one inning. But hey, that’s the beauty of …
Baseball!
Go Deeper
The Phillies were designed for Game 4, a slugging game that saw them win 1 of the World Series.
Go Deeper
The bullpen game has been unravelled twice, but the Padres remain strong: “I wouldn’t bet against me,”
(Top photo by Mike Clevinger: Matt Slocum / Associated Press
