Phillies Walk It Off Into Red October For Second Straight Year

PHILADELPHIA, PA — It was like so many other iconic plays of this wild baseball season in south Philadelphia, a ground ball that sliced through the Kentucky bluegrass straight up the middle and into center, like a running back making a cut and seeing open field and freedom, a perfectly placed hit at the perfect moment.

That poke single by Johan Rojas in the bottom of the 10th inning was more than enough to score Cristian Pache, poised on second, who dove headfirst home in a cloud of dust while Pittsburgh catcher Henry Davis was still waiting for the throw.

The Phillies won, 3-2, clinching their second straight postseason berth and putting them just 9 wins away from repeating as National League champions, and 13 from winning the World Series. "Just two more than last year," manager Rob Thomson would later tell an assembled crowd of Phillies employees in the bowels of Citizens Bank Park.

Rojas, one of the fastest men in baseball, was already all the way out past second and in shallow left-center field by the time the moil of striped white and red erupted from the home dugout. He turned as his teammates came charging out, flinging his helmet high into the charged twilit air, thirty thousand faithful roaring with him.

It was fitting that it was Rojas slapping a single into center to clinch it. The 23-year-old rookie burst into a crowded Phillies outfield picture this summer as the perfect complement to a clubhouse full of some of the game's most high powered, offense first sluggers. Rojas, a Gold Glove caliber defender and contact hitter with elite speed, is one of the quiet cogs that has made the engine whir.

Baseball is filled with teams with big hitters playing on big salaries and even bigger expectations. But the Mets, Padres, Yankees, White Sox, Cardinals, and possibly even the Astros won't be headed to the postseason this fall. Thanks to players like Rojas and Pache, Brandon Marsh, Edmundo Sosa, and Cristopher Sanchez, the Phillies are.

Last year, the Phillies had to clinch in Houston, with just three days left in the regular season. They snuck in as the lowest seed before steamrolling the National League and falling those two fateful wins short of winning it all. It was one of the greatest runs in Philadelphia sports history, but it was just that: one run, one magic Red October, and the wake of toppled titans they left behind were all too happy to prove in 2023 that the Phillies were a fluke.

They aren't. With their first consecutive playoff berths since 2011, these Phillies are no longer defined solely by last fall. This is a new era of championship baseball in south Philadelphia.