Phillies clinch NL East with closing kick, become first team to wrap up division title – The New York Times

MLB
The Hunt
for October
LOS ANGELES — When the Phillies remembered that everything was possible, they started humming the song. It was a Friday night in August, weeks before they seized the National League East, and Jhoan Duran made it feel like October by simply stepping onto the grass. The light show ensued. It went viral. Then, all of the guys inside the home clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park who have been here for the glory and the heartbreak remembered.
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They knew that feeling.
“It’s stuck in my head now,” said Taijuan Walker, who reclined at his locker as he whistled the beat to “El Incomprendido” by Farruko. Duran overheard Walker. He smiled. Across the room, Alec Bohm whistled it too. Some of the most hardened Phillies players shook their heads; it wasn’t disbelief, just a sense that something had happened.
That was Aug. 1. The Phillies moved into first place that night with a win over the Detroit Tigers. They lost the next day, then won the day after that to reclaim first place — a position they never relinquished. Over the next 45 days, the Phillies turned a half-game lead into a commanding 12 1/2-game advantage.
So, for the second straight year, the Phillies are NL East champions. They celebrated earlier than anyone, becoming the first team in MLB to clinch a division title, doing so with a dramatic back-and-forth 6-5 win Monday over the Los Angeles Dodgers in 10 innings. They raced to the division crown with seven wins in eight days.
The Phillies will compete in the postseason for the fourth consecutive season, a feat accomplished only once before in franchise history. That five-year span, from 2007 to 2011, included a World Series championship. These Phillies, an older team with the highest expectations, are acutely aware of their baseball mortality. Maybe this isn’t the last shot for all of this roster, but it might be the best one they have left.
They reached their perch atop the NL East with a dominant rotation, one that has pushed forward without Zack Wheeler, whose season ended on Aug. 15 when a blood clot led to a diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome. Cristopher Sánchez will finish near the top of NL Cy Young Award voting. Ranger Suárez has rounded into his October form. Jesús Luzardo has exceeded all projections.
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The offense soared without Bryce Harper’s best season, or even one considered average by his career standards. Instead, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner powered it all. Schwarber could end up leading the league in homers and RBIs. Turner, who strained his right hamstring last week, could still lead the league in hits and win the club’s first batting title in 67 years.
The Phillies clinched early, but they did not cruise to this division title as they did a year ago, when a 61-32 start served as insulation for mediocre play in July and August. There were dips — among them, Wheeler’s scary situation and a humbling three-game sweep at Citi Field in August that only dented the Phillies’ odds.
Maybe the lowest point came in early June, when the Pittsburgh Pirates swept the Phillies to deepen a five-game losing streak that coincided with a month-long Harper wrist injury. The Phillies were five games back of the New York Mets on June 11 and without Harper.
They were alone in first place by June 20.
The two rivals were not separated by more than two games in either direction for the next six weeks. Then, at the trade deadline, the Phillies added the hard-throwing Duran and well-traveled outfielder Harrison Bader. They signed 40-year-old reliever David Robertson.
They have the best record in baseball since the beginning of August.
Duran was not everything, but he was a gift to a Phillies team that has craved a shutdown closer. Although he stumbled Monday night, he’s saved 14 of the club’s 29 wins since arriving.
Soon after the deadline, Turner was talking on the phone with his father. Mark Turner was like most Phillies fans; he told his son he thought the front office would do more. The shortstop understood. But he tried to explain the feeling that overcame the clubhouse with Duran aboard.
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“It’s nice just having a guy that’s had that role, feels good in it and is confident,” Turner said in August. “It’s fun playing behind him. If you get beat, you get beat. But, like, it doesn’t feel like you’re going to beat yourself, you know?”
Duran transformed the bullpen, moving everyone else down a notch. Bader transformed the outfield, allowing manager Rob Thomson to deploy platoons in the corners and remove the team’s least-productive regular, Nick Castellanos, from an everyday role.
The regular-season apex was last week, when the Phillies flaunted their roster depth in a resounding four-game sweep of the Mets. They are positioned to secure a first-round bye; the top seed is still in play, and the Phillies would love for the National League to run through Citizens Bank Park.
But no one knows anything. The best team in the previous golden era, the 2011 Phillies, was eliminated in five games. The 2022 Phillies were two wins from a World Series title. The 2023 Phillies were more talented but stumbled one game shy of a National League pennant. Maybe the 2025 Phillies are better. Maybe they are luckier.
Maybe they can eliminate the noise, that steady drum of massive expectations, and replace it with a catchy soundtrack. On Aug. 1, when everything changed with Duran’s entrance, the Phillies honored their past. They inducted Jimmy Rollins into the club’s Wall of Fame.
The brash shortstop delivered a speech during an on-field ceremony; near the end, he turned to look at the current players gathered in the Phillies dugout.
“Hey,” Rollins said, “I hope you get tired of hearing about the 2008 World Series team — the same way we were tired of hearing about the 1980 World Series team. And there’s only one way to replace that, and that’s going to get a World Series of your own.”
(Top photo of David Robertson and Bryce Harper: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
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Matt Gelb is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Philadelphia Phillies. He has covered the team since 2010 while at The Philadelphia Inquirer, including a yearlong pause from baseball as a reporter on the city desk. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and Central Bucks High School West.

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