The air is changing in South Philadelphia and the Fall weather is not the cause. As the finishing touches are made on the 2025 Postseason graphics, freshly painted on the Citizens Bank Park grass, Phillies players took the field to begin the day’s workout. The warning track is much more crowded than normal as TV crews and media members from Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and around the world are present.
In just about 24 hours, the 2025 National League Division Series will begin.
A Battle between two giants
The Phillies have navigated much of the past month being the top dog in town. With a substantial lead over the New York Mets in the division for much of September, the Phillies were able to ride out the season without much resistance. Now, they have to face the best team money can buy in the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“They are the world champions…” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said on Friday. “Both clubs are really matched up well, good starting pitching and a lot of thump in both lineups.”
The Phillies (96-66) won the National League East for the second straight year and ended the season with a better record than the National League West Champion Dodgers (93-69). That better record granted the Phillies a bye through the National League Wild Card Series while the Dodgers have to work their way past the Cincinnati Reds. They did so in easy fashion, outscoring the Reds 18-9 in the only Wild Card Series to end in two games.
“They’re extremely talented…” said J.T. Realmuto to the media on Friday. “The epitome of what Major League Baseball should be… It’s good for the game to have these two teams going at it.”
Preparing after the bye
Since Major League Baseball instituted the first round bye for the top two division leaders in both leagues, there has been a debate as to whether the bye is actually an advantage or if it is a momentum-stopper for teams.
J.T. Realmuto is not buying it.
"I think last year there was too much made about the days off situation,” he said on Friday. “Honestly we weren't playing good baseball going into the postseason, so I don't necessarily think it was the days off that slowed us down. I think this year We've been playing better baseball the last few weeks than we were at this point last year. So we just have to continue what we're doing.”
The Phillies took their efforts one step further this year to prevent such a drag, opening Citizens Bank Park to the public for an intrasquad game on Wednesday night. From the music to Dan Baker’s voice announcing the game to opening the gates to 31,343 Phillies fans, every step was taken to make the experience as authentic a game experience as possible. The main difference? It was Phillies versus Phillies.
“They’re highly motivated,” said Thomson. “The intersquad game with 31,000 people helped simulate the atmosphere.”
Pitch for pitch
Saturday night’s opener features a matchup between Cristopher Sánchez and Shohei Ohtani. The pair faced off just a few weeks ago at Dodger Stadium when the Phillies won 9-6. Sánchez allowed four runs over seven innings of action, allowing two home runs off Alex Call and Enrique Hernandez.
While that experience has shown Sánchez how the Dodgers will plan to attack him, he admits that it has also given them more knowledge as to how he operates.
“It’s pros and cons,” said Sánchez through Phillies’ interpreter Diego D’Aniello on Friday. “I faced the Dodgers before, but they studied me too. It’s about executing the plan and finding weaknesses.”
“His confidence has grown,” commented Realmuto on watching Sánchez develop over the past several years. “He can command all three pitches and dominate at home with the crowd behind him.”
Meanwhile, Ohtani pitched five shutout innings against the Phillies and later hit a solo home run to help the Dodgers tie the game up in the eighth inning.
“A couple weeks ago was probably his best start of the year,” said Thomson of Ohtani, in his first season pitching after his Tommy John surgery. “He was really good, he was pumping strikes and it was 98-99.”
“I'm very glad that I was able to end the rehab progression at that moment and specifically about the postseason and facing the Phillies,” said Ohtani through Dodgers interpreter Will Ireton. “With that being said, we're coming up through the Wild Card side, so we're in a position to be the challenger.”
Hit for hit
While the official order has yet to be announced for both teams, the Phillies and Dodgers will turn to Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo, Ranger Suárez, Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Blake Snell as the starting pitchers. All of them are amongst the top starting pitchers in the game.
While both teams are stacked with some of the best hitting in the game, with that caliber of pitching, every run will matter.
“They hit a lot of home runs…” Thomson said on the Dodgers. “But they can also win games without slugging. We have to pitch them well… I do like our ability to bust the slug, but also the ability to manufacture runs when we need to… We’ve sort of showed that over the year.”
While everyone lives for the highlight reel moments like a home run from Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, or even Ohtani or Freddie Freeman, it is just as likely that a game ends on a sacrifice fly from Alec Bohm or a well-timed pinch hit from Edmundo Sosa or Nick Castellanos.
“The series is gonna come down to who’s able to get those big hits in the big moments,” said Realmuto.
The last chance for this core?
With players like Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, and Ranger Suárez on expiring contracts, this year might be the final year for this existing Phillies core to win a World Series. This is a Phillies core that has existed for the past several years, growing closer together than many clubhouses do.
Recently, many of the Phillies came together for a birthday party for Cristopher Sánchez’s one-year old child. Even on their day off, the team came together to just enjoy being with one another.
“That's just kinda how this team is,” said Realmuto. “We enjoy hanging out. We like to go to each other's houses on the off days, enjoy each other company. And I think that's one thing that makes one thing that makes us successful is that we enjoy each other on and off the field.”
“The most special thing and the thing that I love the most about this team and the people that we have around us is how much support and how much we're together at every single point like it doesn't matter who it is,” said Sánchez, sharing the sentiment.
Knowing that many on the team are on expiring contracts has not changed a thing. The pressure remains the same: the pressure to win.
“There's different contracts expiring every season,” Realmuto concluded. “I don't look at this one any differently as far as seasons in the past. From the start of this year, we want to win a World Series and that's really the only thing we're thinking about.”
