Need something to warm you up? Remember these moments from the Phillies’ 2024 season
With baseball still a ways off and a winter storm bearing down on the east coast, let’s warm ourselves in the blanket of memory. Despite how things ended, the Phillies did have a pretty good year in 2024. Especially if you focus mainly on the first half of the season.
In the second half they appeared much more … human. But that didn’t mean they didn’t plant plenty of memorable moments in your head, so that 2024 can be remembered by more than just what didn’t happen.
And there are plenty of options!
- Bryce Harper’s three-homer game, signaling the slugger had finally landed in 2024.
- Trea Turner hit a grand slam against the Dodgers to open up an 8-0 lead on the eventual World Series champions.
- Kyle Schwarber’s three-homer game — hit them to left, right and center.
- Schwarber’s other three-homer game, in Toronto, which ended a drought where the Phillies couldn’t knock in runners from scoring position.
- Schwarber became the all-time MLB leader with 15 leadoff home runs in his career.
- The benches cleared against the Rays when they hit Nick Castellanos and the Giants when they buzzed Harper.
- Edmundo Sosa hit a 450-foot bomb against the Braves.
- Turner, of all people, hit the longest homer of the season, 459 feet, against the Braves in an Apple TV+ game, so that’s why you didn’t see it.
- Weston Wilson hit for the 10th cycle in Phillies history on the night the Phillies’ TV broadcast team was sitting in the stands. John Kruk joined in a standing ovation.
- Tyler Phillips threw a complete-game shutout. It was the Phillies’ fourth of the season at the time and there had been only 12 total across baseball. Zack Wheeler hadn’t even thrown a CGSO yet.
- Eight Phillies were selected for the MLB All-Star Game, tying a league record: Wheeler, Cristopher Sanchez, Ranger Suarez, Jeff Hoffman, Matt Strahm, Harper, Alec Bohm, and Turner. They filled most of the starting infield. There were 17 pitcher spots on the NL roster and the Phillies took five of them.
- Bohm entered the HR Derby, and successfully knocked out Pete Alonso and Marcell Ozuna with the help of Harper’s “wooder” jug.
- The Phillies won the NL East for the first time in 13 years.
- The walkoff win in Game 2 of the NLDS as the Phillies fought for their lives against a Mets squad that was really feeling themselves.
- The Cal Stevenson Game.
Walk-off fever
And how about the walk-offs? Nick Castellanos had the first one on April 13 against the Pirates. Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner did the table setting, Whit Merrifield did the pinch-running, Bryce Harper wild pitch inducing, Alec Bohm did the intentional walking, and Castellanos, at a time when the Phillies were a mere 2-for-12 with the bases loaded, spanked a ball to center well over the centerfielder’s head. Castellanos got a bucket of water to the face for his heroics.
Two nights later, Cristian Pache got the same treatment when he walked the Phillies off with an opposite-field single. And it took over a month, but their next walkoff win on May 18 saw a Kody Clemens game-tying homer with the Phillies down to their last out against the Nationals at home. Johan Rojas made a daring escape from second to third in extras on a sac fly and made it with a Superman dive. Harper, the sound of missiles priming audible each time he stood up to the plate, launched a twisting high liner that the fielder tracked down but allowed Rojas to win the game with ease.
On June 4, after Seranthony Dominguez gets out of an impossible spot, Castellanos wins it in the 10th with an RBI double. He does it again two weeks later against the Padres, after Harper went first to third on a Bohm single. Bryson Stott tied it and Castellanos hit a plummeting pop-op right where no one could reach it. The ball drops, clearly fair, as the right fielder is trying to cradle it, and the ball game is over.
On August 16, Brandon Marsh suddenly aborted an attempt to get to second base on a sizzling high liner to right, then puts on the brakes when he sees the throw … but the throw sails over the entire infield. Marsh looks up and sees nobody covering second base, so he just kind of goes over there and starts dancing. This was very much a Brandon Marsh-style of play. Then the Nationals let Cal Stevenson get away with a bunt base hit, which sets up a Turner no-doubter to win it.
Harper had that great scoop on a grounder at first and Rojas lays out fully to steal a base hit in center as the Phillies hold back the Astros at home on August 26. Josh Hader is on the mound as Harper drives Schwarber in from second with a single to right. There’s nothing the Phillies love more than beating Hader.
Castellanos was back to work on September 1. Carlos Estevez gives the Phillies two clean innings of work that include a clutch strikeout of Merrifield, who is now on the Braves. Harper survives a double-play attempt and Castellanos hits his fourth walkoff of the season on a single up the middle.
On September 9, Rojas makes a crazy catch in center, then collides with the wall and drops the ball on the wrong side of it, letting the Rays tie the game. Rojas just sat there for a while, as the TV broadcast shows a series of reaction shots from people exploding with joy at the catch and then gasping in horror at the result. Fortunately, Harper nails a double to right and Stott manages to hit an easy out somewhere that it’s not so easy to field. Bench guy Buddy Kennedy, in one of his first appearances, has the whole stadium chanting his name and manages to work a walk, allowing Clemens to come up and swat a hard-hit ball to right that ends the game. Kennedy also hit back-to-back doubles with Wilson to tie a game with the Mets on September 15, leading to J.T. Realmuto hitting a walkoff gapper to score the winning run.
And in the Phillies’ final walk-off of the season, Castellanos would deliver a late, sweaty win in Game 2 of the NLDS.
There’s always more to remember about a season than the ending. But more importantly, you don’t have to dwell in the past when the future is also promising — and the Phillies’ future has plenty of promise.
Is your favorite moment mentioned above? Let us know, and listen to the latest episode of Hittin’ Season for more moments like these, as well as what moments the Phillies have in store for 2025!
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2025-01-03 16:37:01
