No, the Phillies aren’t overlooking the NLCS. They’re locked in the same way Bryce Harper stared down Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia in the Division Series
PHILADELPHIA — Everything is falling into place for the Phillies. Right fielder Nick Castellanos is on an absolute heater. First baseman Bryce Harper continues to be The Chosen One, fulfilling his teenage prophecy. And for the second straight year, they are advancing to the National League Championship Series after defeating the mighty Atlanta Braves, 3-1, in Game 4 of the Division Series.
Seemingly everything has gone right in Philadelphia. Everything, that is, except for the one crucial error. After manager Rob Thomson had paid tribute to Thursday night’s heroes, and the players had popped the celebratory champagne and started spraying everyone in sight, the Phillies realized the clubhouse music wasn’t playing. So backup catcher Garrett Stubbs, whose post-clinch revelries have earned him a place in Philadelphia lore, rolled up the non-existent sleeves on his signature overalls.
With a towel over his head and his face pressed against the touch screen like an NFL referee reviewing a crucial play, Stubbs queued up the “Phils Win” playlist to chants of, “We want music! We want music!”
And then baseball’s favorite band of weirdos threw a party.
Surrounded in the middle of the clubhouse, a shirtless Harper flexed his right arm in front of his chest and started jumping up and down to Calum Scott’s version of “Dancing on My Own” — the same song that propelled the Phillies on their surprising run through the postseason last year, which they brought back to lift their spirits as they wallowed in fourth place in early June.
The return of that song coincided with Kyle Schwarber’s move back to the leadoff spot. From that moment through the end of the regular season, the Phillies sported the third-best record in the majors (65-40).
It’s easy to dismiss the impact of clubhouse vibes in modern baseball, especially when front offices build rosters by algorithm and analytics are mentioned at nearly every twist and turn of in-game decisions. But there’s more to building a team culture than roll-your-eyes clichés. Vibes cannot be measured, but they are absolutely felt.
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Take Castellanos, for example. The 31-year-old who loves showing his chest ripped a double in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series and held up his ring finger, prompting some initial confusion as to whether he was flipping off his teammates before it became clear he was signifying the World Series ring he wants to win — the ring that eluded the Phillies by two wins last season.
He carried that new celebration around the bases with him after smacking two home runs in Wednesday night’s pivotal 10-2 win in Game 3, and again on Thursday when he crushed two more dingers.
“I f - - - with Philly,” Castellanos said live on MLB Network during a postgame interview after Thursday’s clincher.
In the clubhouse celebration, Stubbs, Harper and Schwarber clanked Budweiser bottles. They sang along with Trea Turner, Jake Cave and Alec Bohm, shouting the Trey Lewis country song, “Dicked Down in Dallas” at the top of their lungs.
Turner, who signed an 11-year, $300 million contract as a free agent with the Phillies during the offseason, is a two-time All-Star shortstop who won the 2019 World Series with the Washington Nationals. But it took him a while to adjust to the vibes of his new team.
After hitting his first Phillies home run in a road win over the White Sox on April 19, he experienced the postgame shenanigans of Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh, who tried to dump cold water on him. Turner avoided the water and then chided, “No… Stop it! Stop it!” as if they were dogs who kept trying to jump on the couch.
“I’m a father now,” he said in the interview, “of more than one kid, apparently.” At the time, he wanted them to knock it off and save the antics for “walk-off homers, walk-off hits, like clinching stuff.”
Turner toiled through the first half of the season before the Philly vibes washed over him down the stretch. It helped that fervent Phillies fans realized Turner might respond better to cheers than the boos they had hurled his way during midseason struggles.
At the end of July, he was slashing .242/.296/.378 with 10 home runs. Those numbers jumped to .317/.371/.629 with 16 homers over the final two months. That hot streak has continued during the playoffs. He is 12-for-24 with two home runs, four doubles, and four steals in six postseason games. He has at least two hits in four of those six games; in those other two, he has one.
Turner entered Thursday night’s game 0-for-17 in his career against Atlanta ace Spencer Strider. Naturally, because he plays for these Phillies, his results against Strider in Game 4 looked like this: double in the first inning, single in the third, go-ahead homer in the fifth. He added one more hit in the seventh against lefty reliever A.J. Minter to cap off a 4-for-4 night.
“I hate the cold water or cold whatever they got,” Turner said after Thursday’s clincher. “They got all sorts of things going on. Yeah, I hate the cold. But this time of year, it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. Maybe not in May or April, but in October, it’s a blast. So give me all the cold water you can get.”
After the Lewis song ended and they were through lamenting a cheating lover seeing someone else, they performed their rendition of Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight” — complete with their own lyrics during the call-and-response. (This time, they switched out Fish for Braves.) Rookie reliever Orion Kerkering joined in, wearing a custom shirt his buddy had made before Thursday’s game. It read, “Atta Boy Harper” on the front, and on the back, “He Wasn’t Supposed To Hear It” — a cheeky nod to the absurd story that came to dominate the series: Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia’s clubhouse trash-talking of Harper for getting doubled off to end Game 2 in Atlanta.
Arcia’s mocking was witnessed by a few reporters who reported the anecdote in their postgame stories. The Phillies used the bulletin-board material to fuel their blowout Game 3 win.
“They looked at me,” Harper said, “and they were like, ‘What are you going to do?’”
Here’s what Harper did about it: He clobbered two home runs — the first a three-run shot to give the Phillies the lead in their six-run third inning, and the second to leadoff the fifth inning. After each dinger, he stared down Arcia as he rounded second base.
Arcia said that night, “He wasn’t supposed to hear it.” Instead of being mad that they had just gotten crushed, the Atlanta players blamed the reporters who did their job and, you know, reported the vibes that came to define the Braves’ clubhouse.
During his press conference after Game 3, Harper acknowledged his flare for the dramatic and the spotlight he’s played under for about as long as he can remember.
“When I was 10 years old, 11 years old, I played in so many big tournaments and big lights,” he said. “Having everybody in the world relying on you to be the No. 1 pick, that was hard. You know, 17 years old, 16 years old, trying to be the No. 1 pick, knowing that if you’re not, you’re a failure. So that’s pressure, you know. Trying to make all the money you can to get your family out of an area or set them up for life, that’s pressure. This is all cake, man. This is so much fun.”
Harper got emotional when talking about the city of Philadelphia. “I love this place,” he said. “Blue-collar mentality, tough, fighting every single day. I get chills, man. I get so fired up — I signed here for a reason, to do everything I could to bring back a trophy to this town.”
Harper experienced a bit of a scare in the eighth inning on Thursday night, when Atlanta first baseman Matt Olson’s knee collided with his surgically repaired elbow as Olson tried to beat out an inning-ending ground out. Harper winced in pain as teammates surrounded him and the trainer examined him, but he played the rest of the game and was feeling fine afterward. He should be good to go for Game 1 of the NLCS on Monday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, who haven’t lost in the postseason and are playing with their own “we’re dangerous” vibes.
After the clubhouse party had ended, the players and coaches migrated out to the field with their families. As their children ran around, they smoked cigars and posed for photos. President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski, wearing a T-shirt, athletic shorts and flip-flops, walked around and congratulated them.
Unlike the raucous and boozy clubhouse banger, the atmosphere outside was relatively subdued. Unlike last year’s team, these Phillies aren’t happy to simply be feeling the good vibes. They’re locked in.
After the Phillies clinched a playoff berth last month, Marsh went to a bar near Citizens Bank Park and rode the mechanical bull. When asked about the team’s vibes before the Wild Card Series, he beamed and said, “We bleed it, man!” Now, standing on the infield grass after midnight, his wet mane soaked with booze, he reflected on the team, the city, the mission ahead.
His exuberant himbo energy was noticeably absent. In its place, a deep focus on the eight wins needed to put a World Series ring on Castellanos’s begging finger.
“I feel like we’re just getting started,” he said.