2023 NLCS: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Philadelphia Phillies

I mean this has just gotta be Schwarber's moment

Get's the walk anyways

Harper with the bases loaded, please!

But a HR here would be fine too.

welp its probably gonna be decided right here

Big out

Please Harper

At least he didn't GIDP--they got Harper up there.

Fuck

And THAT’S the ball game

oh man I love this. you've gotta love sports

Oh, man--two or three runs after Harper seems unlikely.

i mean just the AB itself and the stakes thereof, really wanted Harper to HR there

So much fun and is not over

I really wish I could have sat down and watched this one.

Also I fully don’t discount the Phillies taking this in the 9th

Nice Play

You're probably right H.P. I just hate to admit it. Still six outs to go

Great play

Wow

Whoa! SS version of Willie Mays in 1954.

feel like the entire playoffs has been one highlight reel play after another

Get's out of it

As the kids say, the vibes are not good in Philadelphia right now

doesnt this kid know what the water cooler's for

Taking a long break to watch this finish. Dbacks playing right into the Phillies immense hunger. Balls in the dirt becoming strikes easily right now. Can’t win like that

Maybe these are great breaking balls, I don't know--the Phillies look pathetic up there.

Always felt bad for baseball water coolers, a thankless job

WOW

Jesus

Strikes out the side! Incredible performance by Ginkel!!!

Sub optimal

this is some legacy defining shit

I’m normally one to cheer against the team that beats my team (who the hell wants your enemy to win it all?), but I am very thankful that the Phillies are sort of explaining what happened to the Dodgers

Ginkel absolutely disgusting this inning, manifesting strikes just thinking about them

The only name Rance Mulliniks could have had that was even clunkier would have been Rance Ginkel.

Great innings by Zack

yea I mean as a Brewer fan this is reminding me of the Heat beating the Bucks which felt like a massive choke until the Heat managed to reveal themselves as a way better team than they ever were in the regular season

Those Kimbrel stinkers really standing out right now. Coulda won it all

The only thing better than happy Phillies fans? Sad Phillies fans

Lol

Okay, but do you just ignore the 162 games where they were outscored? The A's were unbeatable for a couple of weeks too--they just picked the wrong two weeks.

yup that's baseball in the "half the teams make it to the playoffs" era

I’ve made my arguments Clem. The difference is the A’s didn’t make it to the post season!

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 think that post was just a tautology lol, but I’ll stand by it!

I've accepted the reality of baseball playoffs. I just don't want to start recasting Arizona as this really good team that flew under the radar for eight months. (Basketball, I don't know, maybe there's a more credible argument there--I know that some teams really do treat the regular season as prelude to the playoffs, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the case with the D-Backs.)

I would love for the Phillies to render all of that moot.

I mean whether they're a "really good team" isn't exactly the debate here, the point is they were not particularly good in the regular season but are playing great now

hard to overstate how big it was for Ginkel to strike out the side there, not just putting up the zero but also potentially denying Philly's 3 best hitters a final chance

Fair, but you’re putting too much stock into run differential to back up your argument. I’m just going to point at the San Diego Padres to hopefully illustrate why I think using run differential as the major metric of whether a team is good or not doesn’t always work