2023 NLCS: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Wheeler’s been amazing this game. He’s been a joy to watch

Bit of spice just added for the final 4 innings

Two is a start

Getting good

Giving Harper an at bat with a runner in scoring position

He's actually human

Good lord Marsh’s hair is oily/sweaty. Gotta respect a dude just absolutely not caring like that, peak Phillies move

Alright here we go! I fully expect Gurriel to to some damage

Now this will be good

Gifted

Every time I watch Kimbrel I get the impression he might be the luckiest pitcher who ever lived.

Congrats Phils, keep it rolling

Wow, congrats Phillies

I thought Kimbrel was going to blow it

Reason number 73 to cheer the Phils: They play “Dancing on my own” after winning and the crowd drunkenly sings it over the post-game interviews

I always think Kimbrel is going to blow it, and he somehow never does lol

That turned into more of a game than it looked like it was gonna

Gurriel actually hit it pretty hard, but right at Bohm; he gets around on it a little more and sends it up the line and it's maybe 5-4 with him on second and one out

Yeah it was a good knock, Gurriel was a terror in the DS, nice to see the luck swing.

Reason number 73 to cheer the Phils: They play “Dancing on my own” after winning and the crowd drunkenly sings it over the post-game interviews

On the day the Body Talk poll closed and, of course, Dancing on my Own won.

Confirmed official team of ilx, sorry jimbeaux

unfortunately the phils fans are stanning the calum scott version

*sorry - the official tiesto remix of the calum scott version

There are many paths, some less desirable, to the truth

I felt sorry for the DBacks when they were down 5-0, but they hung in and made a game out of it. Sooner or later the Phillies' bullpen will blow games like that. Playoff Kimbrel can't be trusted.

HARPER RAKES, BAKES SNAKES BDAY CAKE

*sorry - the official tiesto remix of the calum scott version

Bullpen flowers are nice.

It's not easy to keep blooms going into October.

great article!

Was Turner always a bad fielder?

Lol that swing.

He was good defensively his two seasons with the dodgers

Oh wow

I guess defense doesn't matter if you can hit

Gotta believe the Phillies home advantage has to be the heaviest in the league this season. Crowd going nuts. Very nice hr from trea, love seeing the dude smile

15 - 29 well that Is impressive

4 balls to Harper, might be the strat moving forward

Agree, that stadium is always rocking

Good ride

Can’t hit ‘em all out apparently

Damn Bryce, don’t ruin your legend!

Harper is human

Only on the base paths. Turns out I wasn’t joking about 4 balls being the strategy!

This is also the matchup of sexiest vs. ugliest uniforms. Dunno how the dbacks still get away with wearing those

lol

Well, the Phillies can hit

good job, Bam Bam

That was close

kyle schwarber's 2023 statline is one of the greatest i've ever seen.

47 HR, 104 RBI, 108 runs, 126 BB, 215 Ks, .197 BA

just massive

That's crazy

I remember when striking out 100 times made news

ABTA

Does everyone else get the “max muncy - mlb tonight” advertisement in the commercial breaks? Some of the most broken sentences ever put on live TV, and it’s run 30 times each game.

Also had a designer friend get very annoyed at the “Baseball Zen” graphics because the white paint doesn’t start off at the line, there’s the tiniest ammount of bleed over to first base. He emailed MLB about this lol.

Sorry if this just an international mlb.tv thing

Wow wow wow!!!

I’m so glad they finally let Carroll steal. And the child Pfaadt did well too. 5 hits from the Phillies is not getting it done.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9Ql41UXAAEkMKP?format=jpg&name=large

I love chaos like this in baseball. It’s much more satisfying to me than reading into all the stats and predictions and narratives of what *should* happen.

Bulletin board material…When will teams learn?

Garrett Stubbs’ plans to celebrate in the pool “motivated” the Diamondbacks, Torey Lovullo said. “I’m glad we could defend the pool,” Zac Gallen said. https://t.co/MQ2zf3UkbP

— Matt Breen (@matt_breen) October 21, 2023

I would never forgive that backup catcher for talking about celebrating in the pool, or the Phillies fan who bought all those seats in AZ. That’s when everything went from great to bad to UGLY. That was Aaron Judge playing NY, NY esque. Cant do that stuff. Its already hard enough

— KFC (@KFCBarstool) October 25, 2023

Unbelievable to think that they lost 110 games just two years ago.

If you made it to the post season (through whatever means), and then you beat the other teams in that post season (through whatever means); you don’t necessarily deserve to be called one of the best teams, but I don’t think you can imply said team didn’t earn it/play better than the other team

I agree with this. It might also be a case like the 2021 Braves -- at the time most people were surprised that they were buyers at the trade deadline. With hindsight, seeing how good the Braves are now, I think it's clear that they were a great young team coming into their own by the end of the season, rather than a .500 team that went on a hot streak. If the Diamondbacks win their division next year then we'll have the answer.

Poll Results
Option Votes
D-Backs in 7 2
Phillies in 4 2
Phillies in 5 2
D-Backs in 5 1
Phillies in 6 1
D-Backs in 4 0
D-Backs in 6 0
Phillies in 7 0

ILBB polled this "correctly."

Who else had D-Backs in 7?

(xpost) I can endorse that: a pretty good team playing very well right now. And, earlier in this thread, I allowed that I may need to reevaluate them in a year or two. Anything beyond that, I've got to put down to, as the vernacular would have it, a heavy case of "recency bias."

If the Diamondbacks win their division next year then we'll have the answer.

hurts

xp What are you saying? That the 2023 Diamondbacks are a better team than the 2023 Orioles? Or that post-season success is a better metric of a teams quality than overall wins? Or something else?

Mookieproof btw pointed out back in April that the Diamondbacks were clearly a serious team when they chose to eat the remainder of the Bumgarner contract rather than continue running his corpse out there. Bumgarner was DFAed on the 26th April & Pfaadt was called up a week later.

I thought about this comment specifically because I saw this tweet (and Haren’s reply):
https://i.postimg.cc/SQ6gPGbq/IMG-1191.jpg

And thought about the Athletic article, which while on the surface was solely about the dfa but actually between the lines portrayed an organisation that has a plan and wanted to execute it.

I guess my tl;dr is that people complaining about “oh no they’re an 84 win team” probably haven’t seen much of them this year, and really whatever but it’s enjoyable to see a scrappy team like this do well.

They really need Christian Walker to wake up though, he’s their home run leader and he’s done fuck all this postseason except for hitting one off Lance Lynn that game everyone else did and looked terrible at the plate in the Championship Series.

This seems a strange ask considering the other team that lost 100+ a couple of years back was the Orioles, who did win their division this year, and then promptly went to pieces in the division series

The Braves were the best team on paper this year, and should continue to be one of the best teams for the next few years. I meant that you can't write off the 2021 Braves as an OK team that got hot in October, considering what they've done since (in the regular season at least).

Oh fair enough then yeah, I agree. Diamondbacks were also pretty savvy to give Carroll that long contract - his price would be through the roof in a few years.

SBORZ and PFAADT are my two "brand names you're likely to find on amazon" names for these playoffs

― 龜, Monday, October 16, 2023 7:09 PM (one week ago)

in retrospect this is where i jinxed it for the phils :(

Bryce, I see what you're going for, but that's a Sixers jersey and you're trying to win an important game https://t.co/m8p283h10b

— Marc Normandin (@Marc_Normandin) October 24, 2023

https://i.ibb.co/ftPfMLt/IMG-4704.jpg

i was a bit more explicit in the jinx in texting my friend but i guess i also ultimately predicted the ws matchup

oh weird my image didn't post. ah well

I hope Kimbrel doesn't get the Mitch Williams treatment around town.

― clemenza, Tuesday, October 24, 2023 11:39 PM (yesterday)

he absolutely will, lucky for him his contract was up at the end of the season (i think). i imagine he was on the first flight out from PHL this morning before fans get around to doxxing his address.