The Philadelphia Phillies’ season was one loss from ending in Atlanta. Then Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Alec Bohm, and Andrew Painter refused to let it happen.
Down 3-1 in Game 2 of the NL Wild Card Series on Wednesday, Philadelphia rallied for a 4-3 win that forced a winner-take-all Game 3 on Thursday, carrying the kind of momentum that only a late, messy escape can produce.
Tuesday’s blown lead had left the club looking finished. Wednesday nearly did the same until the eighth inning, when Schwarber and Harper went back-to-back to tie the game.
In the 10th, Bohm drove an opposite-field solo homer that held up. Painter, working out of the bullpen, closed the night with three scoreless innings and earned the win.
He will not be available again so soon, but most of the rest of the staff will.
That availability is what makes the next start feel less mysterious than it might.
Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, and Jhoan Duran can all pitch in some capacity. The simplest reading of the roster is that those three are supposed to get 27 outs.
The Ringer’s Anthony Dabbundo put it that bluntly on X, and the logic is easy to follow: if the best arms can cover a full game, why wander far from them?
The plan is still full of friction. Wheeler would be working on short rest, which often means fewer innings and less certainty about how his stuff will play.
Nola has been a longtime Phillies fixture, but this season has been uneven. He has given up too many homers and too many pitches over the heart of the plate, a dangerous combination against an Atlanta lineup built to punish mistakes.
Duran’s last high-leverage look did not go well. Brought in Tuesday in the seventh — whether as a long save attempt or a bridge through the top of the order — he allowed an Austin Riley home run that cost Philadelphia the game.
Painter’s work Wednesday bought Duran a night off, which is useful. Game 3 still requires the sharper version of him.
None of that erases the obvious. After a series that had already slipped twice, the Phillies now have their top arms lined up for one more night.
The question is not whether the blueprint is clear. It is whether Nola, Wheeler, and Duran can actually deliver the 27 outs that blueprint demands.
