For these Phillies, it wasnt supposed to end like this. The Game 7 loss will linger

PHILADELPHIA — The end sounded like a pop, followed by a few smacks. Again and again. The Phillies slapped hands and hugged inside a clubhouse that had prepared to party after the first Game 7 in 140 years of Phillies baseball. The plastic to protect the lockers, never unrolled, hung over the room. The bottom of Tuesday’s itinerary that listed all of the pregame practice and meeting times ended with a promise: “TOMORROW (Travel to Texas): Report 12 p.m.”

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There will be no flight to the World Series.

“It will never feel right,” Kyle Schwarber said. “It never does. It never will.”

The end looked like Alec Bohm, jersey pulled over his head, hunched over his chair. It was Johan Rojas, holding back tears, staring into his locker. It was Rhys Hoskins, who returned Tuesday from Florida hoping for another chance to play for the only team he’s ever known, circling the room to deliver hushed goodbyes.

The end was avoidable and, for months, the Phillies will dissect why this happened. Some of it will be too painful to revisit. The Phillies clobbered the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first two games of this National League Championship Series only to drop four of the next five. They had late leads in Games 3 and 4. They led Game 7, a 4-2 loss, by a run in the fifth inning.

The end went like this: The final 17 Phillies that came to the plate could not muster a hit. It was jarring. The Phillies built a mythical home at Citizens Bank Park this October, then wilted when the upstart Diamondbacks dismantled everything piece by piece. Every Phillies hitter swung and missed on at least one pitch out of the strike zone in Game 7. The moment became too big for a team that took pride in controlling the postseason.

The end will linger for a long time.

“Everybody just wants to be part of something bigger than themselves, right?” Hoskins said. “And this team was clearly that. It’s a group of guys that, I think, was destined to be great. And we were. We just came up short tonight.”

About 30 minutes after Schwarber ended the season in the on-deck circle, the sounds inside the losing clubhouse raised. This was the last time everyone in this room would be together. Bottles were opened. Chairs were arranged in circles. The season had started 250 days earlier, with the first workout in Clearwater, Fla., and there would be a wake to memorialize it.

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But this was not the same as when it all ended in Game 6 of the 2022 World Series. That was supposed to be a sensation that motivated the Phillies to never feel it again.

This? This was a beautiful thing the Phillies squandered. And, inside that clubhouse, they felt it.

“I think just because the potential of this team is so much greater than going home before the World Series,” Nick Castellanos said. “Last year, when we lost Game 6, I think obviously we were disappointed because we didn’t win the whole thing. But there was a lot of like, ‘We got here. Now we can build off of that.’ So knowing how we feel about this team, we came up short from what we did the year previous, it’s a disgusting feeling honestly.”

“It sucks,” Trea Turner said. “This definitely hurts. We had it right in front of us and didn’t execute. It’s going to take me a while, that’s for sure.”

“Everyone’s got a sick feeling in their stomach,” Schwarber said.

Bryce Harper packed his locker, then went to the middle of the room to talk to a gaggle of reporters. He had the game on his bat, in the seventh inning, when the tying runs were on base. “He threw me the pitch I wanted,” Harper said. It was a 2-1 fastball, down the middle, from Kevin Ginkel. Harper hit it at 107.6 mph and at a 44-degree launch angle. It went 331 feet and it was an easy third out.

“So,” Harper said, “he beat my barrel by a 10th of a second probably.”

And, now, the swing of his life was a distant memory.

“I just … man, just not being able to come through in that moment just devastates me personally,” Harper said. “I feel like I let my team down and let the city of Philadelphia down as well. That’s a moment I feel like I need to come through and … yeah.”

Now it was 45 minutes after the Phillies lost Game 7 and a crowd formed near Schwarber’s locker. Castellanos, who went 0-for-23 with 11 strikeouts in the series after hitting a homer in Game 1, sprawled on the floor. So did Brandon Marsh. Schwarber, Hoskins, Bryson Stott and Garrett Stubbs sat in their chairs. They talked.

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Hoskins, who will be a free agent, might not be back. Aaron Nola will hit the market as a desired starter. There will be changes — just like there were after the 2022 Phillies fell two wins short of a championship.

“The city has obviously grabbed onto everything that they can with this team and supported us from the bottom of their hearts,” Hoskins said. “You can feel that while you’re out there on the field and in the dugout. Yeah, just watching something grow is an incredible thing. To be a part of that in some sort of way, it’s easy to be proud of.”

But, across the room, Craig Kimbrel shared a drink with Matt Strahm and it stung. Kimbrel will forever be remembered in this city for his stumbles on consecutive days in the desert.

“I mean,” Kimbrel said, “I really can’t describe the disappointment I have in myself.”

How long will it take to overcome those feelings?

“It’s definitely not going to be anything I ever forget,” Kimbrel said. “I mean, as a person we’re supposed to grow on the things that get dealt to us in life. Would I have thought it up the way it worked out? Absolutely not. Can I learn from it? Can I become better from it? I believe so. If I’m going to continue to play this game that’s the only way I can (be).

“They always say as a reliever you’re supposed to have a short memory. But it doesn’t mean you ever forget. You remember the times you get beat. You remember what it feels like. You remember what you did wrong and you try to become better from it. That’s really the only thing I can do as bad as it hurts — as much as I feel like I let everybody down.”

Really, they were all to blame. There were missteps everywhere in Game 7. The Phillies allowed Ranger Suárez, who was one out from completing five strong innings, to face Corbin Carroll for a third time. Carroll singled; it was the first time in Suárez’s career he allowed three hits to a lefty batter in a single outing. Jeff Hoffman, so unexpectedly good in 2023, could not locate an 0-2 slider to Gabriel Moreno. Arizona jumped ahead — for good.

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Castellanos batted in the fourth inning with runners on the corners and one out. A fly ball would have pushed the Phillies ahead by two runs. They were building momentum.

He struck out on four pitches.

“I had a terrible at-bat,” Castellanos said. “Me wanting too much to get the runner in instead of just seeing what the pitcher was going to give me first. And that’s on me.”

Bohm homered in the second and walked in the fourth ahead of Stott’s run-scoring double, but in the eighth inning he struck out and smashed his bat. He held onto the remnants of the stick and smashed it two more times on the dugout steps. He tossed it against the bat rack. He wore the frustration of this collapse.

Turner finished the series on an 0-for-18 skid. He tried to bunt in the fifth inning against lefty Joe Mantiply with a runner in scoring position. It was inexplicable and maybe a sign of how lost Turner was at the plate.

“I just thought it was a good time for it,” Turner said. “They were back. I was trying to go for more of a base-hit bunt. I think there’s opportunities in the game to get another runner on base and keep the momentum going. I felt fine. I’ve faced Mantiply quite a bit. Just trying to play baseball more than anything.”

The Diamondbacks played baseball. They were aggressive and confident and poised. The Phillies toppled under the weight of it all. It’s messy. It will raise difficult questions.

As the Phillies congregated around Schwarber’s locker, a door opened and Liam Castellanos poked his head into the room. He saw his dad slouched on the floor and ran toward him. Liam jumped into Nick’s arms and hugged him.

There were life lessons to learn for everyone.

“I love them all,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “I really do. So it is disappointing, but it’s tough to get back to this position two years in a row. It is. They fought like hell to get here, and we came up short. That’s baseball sometimes.”

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Maybe so, but that’s not the Phillies. Not this team. This should have ended with a pennant, a party, and a flight to Texas. It was so easy for everyone to envision the end, and it looked nothing like this.

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(Top photo of Brandon Marsh and Kyle Schwarber after the Phillies lost Game 7: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)

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