ATLANTA — Jhoan Duran left the bullpen after the final note of “God Bless America.” It was only the seventh-inning stretch, two innings sooner than the star closer typically goes to work.
Yet nobody was surprised.
Because if the Phillies have a postseason pitching plan, it is to use the fewest pitchers possible to get 27 outs in a game. All hands on deck? Try six arms, maybe seven, even though there are a dozen on the roster.
So, Jesús Luzardo pushed his recently inflamed left shoulder for 77 pitches against the Braves here Tuesday in his first start in 22 days. Fifteen outs down in Game 1 of the best-of-three wild-card series.
And once the Phillies took a one-run lead in the top of the seventh inning, with the top of the Braves’ order coming up, interim manager Don Mattingly called on Duran to get as many of the last nine outs as he could.
There wasn’t much choice.
It ended the way it always seems to end for the Phillies in Game 1s. For the third consecutive postseason, the bullpen coughed up a late lead. This time, Duran threw a clean, 12-pitch seventh and got two outs in the eighth. Then, an infield single, a hit batter, and …
Kaboom.
Go ahead and put Austin Riley’s three-run homer — on a juicy first-pitch fastball that hung over the plate — in the Braves’ 5-3 victory up there with the Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández’s three-run dinger in the seventh inning last year against Matt Strahm and the Mets’ five-run eighth inning in 2024 against Jeff Hoffman and Strahm.
“There’s no secret that we’ve had our share of blown leads, not just Game 1 but throughout the postseason,” said J.T. Realmuto, whose two-run triple into the right-field corner put the Phillies ahead 3-2 in the top of the seventh. “Sixth, seventh, eighth inning, it’s something we have to get better at. And we have the guys in here to do it.”
Well, that’s the thing. The Phillies had deeper, better bullpens the last two years. Rob Thomson didn’t use Duran in the seventh inning last year because he had Strahm and David Robertson. In 2024, Hoffman and Strahm were All-Stars.
This year, the bridge to Duran buckled when $22 million setup man Brad Keller tore an elbow ligament in July. Dave Dombrowski, a future Hall of Fame executive with a blind spot for building past bullpens (ask fans in Detroit) didn’t suitably reinforce it at the trade deadline.
And it collapsed almost entirely in the last few weeks due to ineffectiveness (José Alvarado and Orion Kerkering) and injury (Jonathan Bowlan).
Before the game, Mattingly and pitching coach Caleb Cotham agreed to script the pitching accordingly. If they could get to the seventh inning with a lead, they would go to Duran early.
Duran said he was aware of the plan. For weeks, the Phillies have discussed using him for more than three outs in the postseason.
“I feel like stuff like that happens in the postseason all the time,” Trea Turner said. “I was more wondering how long he was going to go.”
Turner has seen this before, notably with the Nationals in 2019. They won a wild card despite a bullpen that had a 5.66 ERA in the regular season. In the playoffs, they leaned primarily on two relievers and used starters Patrick Corbin, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Anibal Sanchez out of the bullpen on side days.
And they won the World Series.
“We had very few [relievers],” Turner recalled. “Our two main guys were [Sean] Doolittle and [Daniel] Hudson, and we kind of pieced together after that. Corbin picked us up a lot. … You’ve just got to find a way.
“I mean, it’s frustrating. But it’s not over.”
It’s not. But since the creation of the best-of-three miniseries in 2022, the Game 1 winner has won 15 of 16 series. Only the Yankees lived to tell about a series-opening loss, and they were playing at home.
The Phillies will pin their hopes to Cristopher Sánchez, and he did win 18 games with a 2.91 ERA. They went 23-10 in his starts, albeit only 8-6 on the road and 0-2 against the Braves.
But unless Sánchez throws a complete game, Mattingly will face the conundrum of how to get the last three, six, or more outs from less than a handful of trustworthy options.
Zack Wheeler would be on two days’ rest after throwing 97 pitches Sunday in the must-win regular-season finale. Aaron Nola would be on three days’ rest after starting on two days’ rest Saturday night. And the Phillies probably need to hold him back to start a potential Game 3 here Thursday.
Duran threw 27 pitches, his highest total since Aug. 16. Could he pitch again Wednesday in Game 2?
“Maybe yes, maybe not,” he said. “I don’t know. I need to do my catch play first.”
Rookie righty Alex McFarlane will be available after only 16 pitches in the sixth inning. But he gave up the go-ahead run on a hard single by Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies’ triple off over center fielder Derek Hill’s outstretched glove at the wall in right-center field.
Mattingly suggested that Bowlan was an option in the ninth inning if Duran had gotten through the eighth. Rookie starter Andrew Painter will sit in the bullpen again, and could easily get a phone call even though he hasn’t pitched in relief.
Consider what Mattingly said before Game 1: “I think you look at it and, is he one of our better guys? That’s just what I’m looking at. And he’s one of our better guys. … It’s hard to go to somebody else that, I don’t want to use names, but somebody else over him that’s not the same caliber.”
With a one-run lead in the seventh inning of another Game 1, Mattingly didn’t have anyone as good as Duran.
“Yeah,” Bryce Harper said, “that’s a dagger.”
Also, a rerun of the same postseason play — only this time, with fewer cast members who actually get on the stage.
