Save the date? It feels like Phillies and Braves are meant to meet in October
Daniel Cobb
Published Apr 06, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — After three hours and 28 minutes, the difference might have been two foul tips that J.T. Realmuto couldn’t trap in the 10th inning. The difference was a bad pitch by Zack Wheeler. “I just hung the curveball to … what’s his name?” Wheeler said afterward. “Acuña?” Yes, that was Ronald Acuña Jr. who pranced around the diamond. The difference was Brad Hand, great against lefties and not against righties, facing Brandon Marsh who is great against righties and not against lefties, while a player the Phillies have decided not to use even though he’s good against lefties remained on the bench.
Advertisement
Yeah. It feels like the Phillies and Braves are meant to see each other again in October.
“We have to get there,” Craig Kimbrel said. “But that would be a heck of a fight.”
The Phillies have lost four of their last six games. Three of those losses have come by one run. The other was in extra innings. They have four more games against the Braves this season and, while Atlanta is the standard in the National League with a better roster that has outplayed the Phillies, both on Tuesday night and this entire season, there is something about the chaotic energy the Phillies possess. Maybe that is what conquers a juggernaut.
The Phillies have last October as evidence.
“It’s what you expect coming in here,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said Tuesday after his team won 7-6 in 10 innings. “This team scares me as much as any team in the game, honestly. That firepower and what they’ve got. As we saw right there, if they’ve got a strike left, they’re dangerous. When you come in and play good teams like this, you expect it to not be easy, and it never is.”
There is a different feeling when they meet. The games between these teams have been close all season. The Phillies and Braves have another game Wednesday, then three more next week at Truist Park that will be almost meaningless for Atlanta because they’ll have clinched the NL East before then. That doesn’t mean the Braves won’t want to make life harder for the Phillies.
“We’ve said it all year,” Bryce Harper said. “We’re a really good team. We just have to play that way and keep doing that. That’s a really good team over there. They’re going to win this division and be one of the better teams in the playoffs. But we have to keep doing our job and we can’t really worry about that right now. We just have to win these games. Especially the close ones like that. Especially when you’re at home.”
Advertisement
The Phillies could have won all three against Atlanta this week. They could have lost all three. That’s how the entire season series has unfolded.
May 25: The teams traded runs until Gregory Soto allowed three in the eighth. Braves win, 8-5.
May 26: Nick Castellanos and Brandon Marsh had big two-run hits in a 6-4 Phillies win while Taijuan Walker scattered 10 hits in 6 2/3 innings.
May 27: Wheeler threw eight shutout innings with 12 strikeouts in perhaps the best-pitched game against the mighty Braves this season. Phillies win, 2-1.
May 28: Dylan Covey made his first and only start for the Phillies and allowed seven first-inning runs. Braves win, 11-4.
June 20: The Phillies had a lead through five innings, but the Braves scored three runs against the bullpen to win 4-2.
June 22: The game was scoreless after nine innings. Kyle Schwarber flubbed a routine fly ball that would have ended the 10th. Five unearned runs scored. Braves win, 5-1.
Sept. 11: The two teams combined for 30 runs in a ridiculous doubleheader that included a 10-inning game sparked by a Harper game-tying homer that went to waste. They split. Then, Tuesday happened.
That’s the season series. The Phillies are 3-6 against Atlanta. They were 8-11 against them in 2022 yet the Braves outscored them by only three runs. No one remembered that because the Phillies won the National League Division Series in four games.
Everything in 2023 has been a continuation of that.
“This series, I feel like, has been close,” Trea Turner said. “It feels like we can compete with anybody and I think they feel the same way. We believe in ourselves. It’s going to be whoever executes the most is going to come out on top. Today, they did that.”
The Phillies have suffered too many back-breaking losses in the last three weeks. It should affect a team.
Advertisement
“No,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Because they keep coming back. They keep fighting. That too will change, just like hitting with runners in scoring position. As long as they’re fighting, I’m good with it.”
Tuesday’s game was lost in the ninth inning when, after Turner tied it with his 26th homer, the Phillies put runners on first and second. Nobody out. Realmuto struck out on three pitches. Castellanos tapped the first pitch he saw into a 5-4-3 double play.
“Lately, we haven’t hit with runners in scoring position,” Thomson said. “We’re scoring a lot of runs via the home run. That’ll change.”
But, in the 10th inning, something curious happened. The Braves dared Thomson to pinch hit for Marsh. Thomson had done just that in three of the last five games whenever the opponent summoned a tough lefty. But Thomson did not do it this time. Marsh struck out with the tying run on third base and one out.
Rodolfo Castro, the lone hitter acquired by the Phillies at the trade deadline, was brought here to face lefties. He has batted once in September. The coaching staff does not trust him, but he has remained on the roster because the front office wants to maintain the option of sending Castro to the minors in 2024.
“He hadn’t had an at-bat in a week,” Thomson said. “I trust Marsh there.”
It was a terrible matchup for Marsh, whose OPS is 183 points lower against lefties than righties. Hand’s OPS against righties this season was 406 points higher than against lefties. Castro, this season, has hit .260/.345/.481 against lefties in the majors. If this wasn’t a spot to use him, then it would appear as if Thomson was asking the front office to give him a different player on his bench.
“No,” Thomson said. “We’re fine. I mean, I trust Marsh.”
It’s the little things, and the Braves almost always do the little things. Make a mistake against them and they strike. Wheeler had allowed three homers in a start only twice in 223 career games before Tuesday. The Braves dinged him for six runs on three homers.
Advertisement
“As long as you make your pitches, you’ll put yourself in the right lane,” Wheeler said. “I just hung the curveball. Probably didn’t do the best job of setting myself up after certain at-bats the time before. I could have done something a little different. You live and you learn. I’ll face these guys again pretty soon. So, we’ll see them then.”
They will. Maybe they’ll see them again in October, too. Maybe not.
“We know we can do it,” Turner said. “We know we could win some more games here or there. Pitch goes our way, this or that. Whatever it may be. Baseball’s a hard game. They’re a really good team over there, obviously. I feel like we’ve played pretty well. It’s just a hard game.”
GO DEEPER
Matt Olson ties Andruw Jones' record, Braves mash to new NL mark in win over Phillies
GO DEEPER
Kepner: Pulled back to the ballpark, for a day of Phillies-Braves. No, Lefty — it never gets old
(Top photo of Marcell Ozuna circling the bases in front of Bryce Harper after hitting a home run: Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
