The Cathartic Spike of the Phillies’ Big Night

Aaron Nola and Rhys Hoskins have experienced nearly all the heartache and false hope of the last decade. They were the brightest stars when playoff baseball returned to Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA — Hardly anyone on this roster has been here longer. The Phillies drafted Aaron Nola and Rhys Hoskins together in 2014; they rose through the organization and endured years of losing and dashed hopes and false starts. A rebuild began. The roster turned over. They stayed.

On Friday, in Game 3 of the NLDS, the pair finally experienced what they had been working toward that whole time: Philadelphia’s first home playoff game in 11 years. And the two of them won it together.

Nola delivered six innings of one-run ball—his third straight outstanding start, a streak that has powered this club through clinching a playoff berth, making it out of the first round and now getting a lead in the NLDS. Hoskins, meanwhile, broke the game open with a three-run home run. The result was a boatrace. After a 9–1 victory over Atlanta, Philadelphia is up in the series 2–1, one win away from the NLCS. It’s a spot few would have expected from this club in May, or in August, or even last week. And that it could be done like this—at home, against a division foe, the defending-champion Braves, led by roster stalwarts Nola and Hoskins—made it all the sweeter.

“For those two guys to be able to do that in that first playoff game at home, it’s unbelievable,” said Phillies designated hitter Bryce Harper, who contributed a home run of his own. “I mean, I got chills sitting here thinking about it again… It’s a really cool moment. Just really cool to be part of it.”

Hoskins’s home run gave the Phillies a 4–0 lead in the third inning; it triggered a spectacular, cathartic release among a fanbase that has been waiting for this for a decade. The roar from the sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park surpassed thunderous and went straight into deafening. But the best celebration of all came from Hoskins himself.

As the ball shot toward the stands in left field, Hoskins briefly stretched his arms skyward, exultant. Then he flung down his bat. This was a statement: If a bat flip is a show unto itself, a bat spike feels more like a continuation of its plate appearance, a decisive, piercing conclusion. It’s punctuation. And Hoskins’s spike seemed to end a sentence that had been years in the making. It held frustration, vindication, exhilaration. Here was the exclamation point—on a franchise’s playoff drought, on a team’s bumpy season, on his own ups and downs this year. It all led to this swing and, in turn, to this spike.

“I didn’t know what I did until a couple innings later, really,” Hoskins said. “It’s just something that came out, just raw. But God, it was fun.”

Hoskins didn’t hold back his emotions when his blast broke the game open :: Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports

It was part of a spectacular unraveling for Braves starter Spencer Strider. Making his first start since Sept. 18 after being sidelined with an oblique injury, Strider was on a limited pitch count, Braves manager Brian Snitker had confirmed before the game. The rookie came out looking perfectly healthy: He cruised through the first two innings without allowing a baserunner. But everything fell apart for him in the third. Strider lost his feel for the zone against the first batter, Phillies center fielder Brandon Marsh, walking him on four pitches. He labored through the next two matchups—ultimately striking out second baseman Jean Segura and yielding an RBI double in a battle with shortstop Bryson Stott—before the Braves decided to intentionally walk Kyle Schwarber to get to Hoskins.

“I’m human. I’m a competitor,” Hoskins said of the intentional walk. “They're obviously telling me something right away before I even step in the box. So I'm ready to compete. And I think when you light a little bit of a fire under somebody, [they] tend to hone in and focus a little bit more, and I just didn't miss.”

Strider’s first pitch to him was a lifeless fastball: 93 mph, among the slowest of his professional career, a clear sign that his outing had gone south. Hoskins was ready. The ball was gone.

The Phillies now had a four-run lead with just one out in the third; Strider had passed the 50-pitch mark. Yet the young starter was left in to face catcher J.T. Realmuto. And there was contact on the first pitch here, too: a well-struck single to left field. After four hits and four runs on four consecutive pitches—with a fifth baserunner mixed in on the intentional walk—Strider’s day was over. Reliever Dylan Lee was now in to face Harper.

Again the first pitch was a lifeless four-seamer. Again the ball was gone. It was 6–0, and the Phillies would not look back.

The energy in the stadium was palpable enough to feel physical: “When you’re running in the outfield, or around the bases, whatever, and you just feel whoo, whoo, that’s when you know,” Marsh said. “It was that loud.” Stott said he needed to crank up his PitchCom—the device that shares pitch calls with the pitcher and infield—to more than double its usual volume to hear it at all.

“The crowd gave us energy,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. “That’s as loud as I’ve been around. And it was just fantastic. They went from first pitch to last pitch… That was unbelievable.”

The Phillies will have Noah Syndergaard on the mound as they look to close out the series in Game 4. While the righty was moved from the rotation to the bullpen toward the end of the season, without a solid fourth starter here, it’s logical enough to go with Syndergaard over Bailey Falter or Kyle Gibson. It further helps that some key members of the bullpen, like Seranthony Dominguez and Zach Eflin, will be fresh after not being used in Game 3.

But those are details for Saturday. On Friday night, the Phillies could instead bask in a win that felt a long time coming, and embrace the pair who made it happen.

“We’ve been on some teams that lost a lot and kept inching our way up,” Nola said of him and Hoskins. “Every spring training, the team [was] getting better. The guys getting better, getting closer as a group, and finally made that push this year. It’s been fun so far. But we’ve got tomorrow to take care of.”