Nick Castellanos leads star turns in powering the Phillies past the Braves and back to the NLCS

PHILADELPHIA – In quiet moments before the roaring thunder of a Phillies home playoff games, Rob Thomson will sometimes grab the lineup card off his desk, wander into the coaches’ room adjacent to his office, and take a poll.

“We’ll joke around,” the manager said. “Who’s the pick to click?”

Most days across these past two Octobers, there were no bad choices. In becoming the best postseason team in the National League, the Phillies have also been the deepest. Star turns come from everywhere, the top of the roster and the bottom.

If the coaching staff played their parlor game before Game 4 of the divisional round, Nick Castellanos would have been a popular pick considering his at-bats lately. Trea Turner? Probably not given his hitless history against Atlanta Braves starter Spencer Strider. What about Johan Rojas? Maybe if defense counts.

Yet there they were Thursday night, hitting and slugging and leaping at the warning track to push the Phillies into the NL Championship Series for the second year in a row. Castellanos became the first player with back-to-back two-homer games in the playoffs; Turner solved Strider with three hits, including a go-ahead homer; Rojas made a lead-saving catch.

It all added up to a 3-1 Phillies win that ran the 104-win Braves out of the playoffs again, just like last season – and on the same Citizens Bank Park turf where Atlanta danced and celebrated a division title last month.

The NLCS will start Monday night, in South Philly, against the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks.

Before the game, Thomson marveled at the “eerie” similarities between this October and last. It really is true. From sleepwalking through the first two months of the regular season to nearly identical six-run third innings in Game 3s against Atlanta, 2022 and 2023 have been nearly carbon copies.

One common denominator: Everyone has contributed.

This week, it has been Castellanos’ turn. With his son, 10-year-old Liam, visiting from Florida, Castellanos slammed two homers in a Game 3 rout. He drew a walk in his first at-bat of Game 4, then slammed a game-tying homer on a first-pitch slider from Strider.

In the sixth inning, Castellanos struck again. This time, he turned around a 100 mph fastball and launched it to left field.

Liam’s reaction? Well, you had to see it to believe it. Mouth agape, he put his hands to his head as 45,331 paying customers went ballistic.

“I haven’t seen him in over a month, so for him now to be here and to be able to witness postseason baseball and just for him to be close enough for where he can feel it, you know, it’s so important for me,” Castellanos said Wednesday night. “Just to see him thrive and enjoy and be a part of something magical, I mean as a father, like I can’t ask for more.”

Maybe that explains what Thomson described as Castellanos’ “very calm” demeanor at the plate. Whatever the case, he’s the hottest hitter on the planet – save perhaps Harper, whose two-homer tour de force and staredown of loose-lipped Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia in Game 3 is the enduring moment of the series.

Turner always appears calm at the plate, especially since early August when he finally shrugged off the worst slump of his career. Still, he was 0-for-17 against Strider entering the game.

What a time, then, to pop a tiebreaking homer on a first-pitch slider in the fifth inning?

From there, Thomson put the game in the hands of his bullpen. Again.

In Game 1, with Ranger Suárez starting and knowing runs would come at a premium against Strider, the Phillies had the brazen idea of running a six-reliever relay from the fourth inning through the end of the game.

It worked. They stole a 3-0 victory in Atlanta and control of the series.

This time, in the Suárez-Strider rematch, they were only slightly less aggressive. Thomson stuck with Suárez twice through the order, and just like in Game 1, he coolly dispatched hitter after hitter.

Never mind that the Braves slugged .521 against lefties in the regular season. Suárez faced 18 batters and retired 14, allowing little more than Austin Riley’s solo homer in the fourth inning. In the two games, Suárez retired 25 of 31 batters.

But as the sixth inning began, the bullpen sprang into action. And for 12 outs – from Seranthony Domínguez and José Alvarado, to Craig Kimbrel and Gregory Soto, and finally to Matt Strahm – the Phillies squeezed the life out of the Braves.

Oh, but first, Rojas saved the day.

Kimbrel inherited a two-on, two-out jam from Alvarado and promptly walked pinch-hitting Travis d’Arnaud to load the bases. Up stepped Ronald Acuña Jr., the MVP frontrunner in the National League and the player that Rojas said he most admires.

Acuña fouled off two pitches with two strikes before hitting a line drive to left-center field. Expecting batting average on the ball: .470, according to Statcast. But Rojas ran it down on the warning track, leaped by the 409-foot sign where the wall juts out, and hauled it in.

The Braves’ last gasp came in the ninth. Having used Alvarado and Kimbrel, Thomson called on Strahm, who began the season in the starting rotation. The tall, rail-thin lefty struck out Vaughn Grissom on a wicked slider to kick off the Phillies’ seventh beer-and-stogies celebration since the beginning of last October.

So, who was your pick to click?

With the Phillies in the postseason, it’s almost impossible to miss.