2023 NLCS: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Phillis in 4 as the D-Backs also don't have home advantage

Phillies in 5.

Phillies in 5, i think AZ will steal a win along the way but can't see them doing much more than that.

Mentioned this exchange the other day:

"Nick, nobody in Major League history has hit two home runs on back-to-back postseason games, but you just did. And you guys are headed to the NLCS."- Matt Winer

"Where's the question in that?"- Nick Castellanos

"There's no question." Winer

"Thank you for telling me."- Castellanos

I actually felt bad for the reporter! I don't think Castellanos was trying to be a wise guy or anything...Is the underlying message that the Phillies are so team-oriented that they're oblivious to individual accomplishment? Or was Castellanos just literally waiting for an actual question?

The latter. His interviews are all…kind of like that deadpan style. He did laugh right after it though, to show he was joking?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQzzE8BxGTY

Deadpan's the best kind of humour there is. I already liked him because he was Greek, now I really like him. (I don't remember him laughing with Winer, maybe I missed that.)

Nicholas Alexander Castellanos is Cuban? That's like the most Greek name I've ever heard!

lollllll wait till you hear about Kevin Youkilis

Cody Bellinger probably the highest profile current player with Greek ancestry afaict

https://ahepa.org/los-angeles-dodgers-all-star-receives-prestigious-hellenic-athlete-award-for-excellence/

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Hahahaha that was great

Schwarber had that “why’d you make me do that?” Face towards Gallen after hitting that

Oh no

Ya know I kinda wanted to get on the dbacks bandwagon because 1. Didn’t want a rematch of last year and 2. Gotta cheer the underdog right?
But: 1. Rangers all the way and 2. Damn this team and what they did to the Dodgers

Go Phils!

I feel the same way about the Phillies, since they seem to have the Braves' number.

Plus, I have always hated their baby blue uniforms.

One pitch one run, can't start any better than that

I mean, I think 5 pitches 2 runs is a little bit better

Trea ruining this Phillies efficiency

Happy birthday Bryce

Geez Phillies, way to ruin the ballgame early

Are you even allowed to throw fastballs in the zone to this team with how they’re hitting atm? What an impossible offence to beat

This Phillies team is just too much

They’re playing a different sport

Yeap

It’s not quite the thrashing the dodgers got, but regardless this is all very satisfying in a primitive way

Geez that’s a gift call. Gallen looks lost

Bryson Stott/Dacre Montgomery is the new Tyler Glasnow/Cilian Murphy

https://s1.r29static.com/bin/entry/592/1440x1850,80/2213580/image.jpg

every time the camera shows marsh on the field he's gassing someone up. feel like he's a real glue guy

Is it me or does the Phillies PA announcer sound like he is 100 years old. I wasn't sure he was going to get through the player introduction without breaking out into an extended spat of heavy breathing and lingering pauses between each word.

Wheeler’s been amazing this game. He’s been a joy to watch

Bit of spice just added for the final 4 innings

Two is a start

Getting good

Giving Harper an at bat with a runner in scoring position

He's actually human

Good lord Marsh’s hair is oily/sweaty. Gotta respect a dude just absolutely not caring like that, peak Phillies move

Alright here we go! I fully expect Gurriel to to some damage

Now this will be good

Gifted

Every time I watch Kimbrel I get the impression he might be the luckiest pitcher who ever lived.

Congrats Phils, keep it rolling

Wow, congrats Phillies

I thought Kimbrel was going to blow it

Reason number 73 to cheer the Phils: They play “Dancing on my own” after winning and the crowd drunkenly sings it over the post-game interviews

I always think Kimbrel is going to blow it, and he somehow never does lol

That turned into more of a game than it looked like it was gonna

Gurriel actually hit it pretty hard, but right at Bohm; he gets around on it a little more and sends it up the line and it's maybe 5-4 with him on second and one out

Yeah it was a good knock, Gurriel was a terror in the DS, nice to see the luck swing.

Reason number 73 to cheer the Phils: They play “Dancing on my own” after winning and the crowd drunkenly sings it over the post-game interviews

On the day the Body Talk poll closed and, of course, Dancing on my Own won.

Confirmed official team of ilx, sorry jimbeaux

Geez, at least get one guy on and make it fun.

^

Sea World is doing it!

Is there an actual Arizona fan on this board? Someone who used to start seasonal threads? I can't remember anyone.

Last strike

Cave battling

What a series. Condolences dback haters ;)

This is all a pipe dream, the Phillies are going to take this. Good story, like so many that came before.

― Bee OK, Saturday, 21 October 2023 2:30 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sorry Bee, but I’m a man of my word

I like corbin carroll but i am not looking forward to Corbin Carroll Ultimate Winner discourse over the next 20 years*

*we all gonna die go AZ

I deserve it

Stunning. Texas was somewhat of a surprise, but not major; this is different.

remember when Phillies won 10-0 to take a 2-0 lead

Just want to say, late season call ups are a thing

~~Cinderella story~~

Congrats Dbacks!

happy for torey lovullo i guess

Anyway, I assume Marte is MVP? I didn't watch every game.

Tip my cap

I love chaos like this in baseball. It’s much more satisfying to me than reading into all the stats and predictions and narratives of what *should* happen.

Congrats AZ and TEX, sparing me from the absolute worst WS matchup I could imagine. (Rooting for Bochy.)

MLB odds 10/2/2023:

Texas Rangers +1700
Diamondbacks +3000

Anyway, I assume Marte is MVP? I didn't watch every game.

― clemenza, Tuesday, October 24, 2023 10:28 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Kimbrel IMO

(xposts) Putting aside whatever I've said about Arizona, I was rooting for the Phillies far more for the same reasons, I'm guessing, as most people who were rooting for them--they're an intense, combustible team, typified by Harper. (Or at least till these last two games.) The things everybody loved about them last year. Didn't have a lot to do with stats.

I’m with Michael. Team chaos!!

lol eephus

I hope Kimbrel doesn't get the Mitch Williams treatment around town.

Ketel Won!

i can finally say what i'd been hoping to say during the NLDS - suck it Philly!

The first publication/site that does a position-by-position rundown of the Rangers and Diamondbacks to determine who will win, I'm going to send them a dozen 1967 calendars.

that i cannot find photos of Billy Crystal and Rudy Guiliani during the D'Backs '01 run is driving me mad.

reconfirming my allegiance to team buzzkill. there are too many teams in the playoffs.

That i can’t find the willie randolph/joe torre IT’S A LOT OF MEAT commercial makes ME crazy

"Team Buzzkill"--I found a home.

Wow wow wow!!!

I’m so glad they finally let Carroll steal. And the child Pfaadt did well too. 5 hits from the Phillies is not getting it done.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9Ql41UXAAEkMKP?format=jpg&name=large

I love chaos like this in baseball. It’s much more satisfying to me than reading into all the stats and predictions and narratives of what *should* happen.

Bulletin board material…When will teams learn?

Garrett Stubbs’ plans to celebrate in the pool “motivated” the Diamondbacks, Torey Lovullo said. “I’m glad we could defend the pool,” Zac Gallen said. https://t.co/MQ2zf3UkbP

— Matt Breen (@matt_breen) October 21, 2023

I would never forgive that backup catcher for talking about celebrating in the pool, or the Phillies fan who bought all those seats in AZ. That’s when everything went from great to bad to UGLY. That was Aaron Judge playing NY, NY esque. Cant do that stuff. Its already hard enough

— KFC (@KFCBarstool) October 25, 2023

Unbelievable to think that they lost 110 games just two years ago.

If you made it to the post season (through whatever means), and then you beat the other teams in that post season (through whatever means); you don’t necessarily deserve to be called one of the best teams, but I don’t think you can imply said team didn’t earn it/play better than the other team

I agree with this. It might also be a case like the 2021 Braves -- at the time most people were surprised that they were buyers at the trade deadline. With hindsight, seeing how good the Braves are now, I think it's clear that they were a great young team coming into their own by the end of the season, rather than a .500 team that went on a hot streak. If the Diamondbacks win their division next year then we'll have the answer.

Poll Results
Option Votes
D-Backs in 7 2
Phillies in 4 2
Phillies in 5 2
D-Backs in 5 1
Phillies in 6 1
D-Backs in 4 0
D-Backs in 6 0
Phillies in 7 0

ILBB polled this "correctly."

Who else had D-Backs in 7?

(xpost) I can endorse that: a pretty good team playing very well right now. And, earlier in this thread, I allowed that I may need to reevaluate them in a year or two. Anything beyond that, I've got to put down to, as the vernacular would have it, a heavy case of "recency bias."

If the Diamondbacks win their division next year then we'll have the answer.

hurts

xp What are you saying? That the 2023 Diamondbacks are a better team than the 2023 Orioles? Or that post-season success is a better metric of a teams quality than overall wins? Or something else?

Mookieproof btw pointed out back in April that the Diamondbacks were clearly a serious team when they chose to eat the remainder of the Bumgarner contract rather than continue running his corpse out there. Bumgarner was DFAed on the 26th April & Pfaadt was called up a week later.

I thought about this comment specifically because I saw this tweet (and Haren’s reply):
https://i.postimg.cc/SQ6gPGbq/IMG-1191.jpg

And thought about the Athletic article, which while on the surface was solely about the dfa but actually between the lines portrayed an organisation that has a plan and wanted to execute it.

I guess my tl;dr is that people complaining about “oh no they’re an 84 win team” probably haven’t seen much of them this year, and really whatever but it’s enjoyable to see a scrappy team like this do well.

They really need Christian Walker to wake up though, he’s their home run leader and he’s done fuck all this postseason except for hitting one off Lance Lynn that game everyone else did and looked terrible at the plate in the Championship Series.

This seems a strange ask considering the other team that lost 100+ a couple of years back was the Orioles, who did win their division this year, and then promptly went to pieces in the division series

The Braves were the best team on paper this year, and should continue to be one of the best teams for the next few years. I meant that you can't write off the 2021 Braves as an OK team that got hot in October, considering what they've done since (in the regular season at least).

Oh fair enough then yeah, I agree. Diamondbacks were also pretty savvy to give Carroll that long contract - his price would be through the roof in a few years.

SBORZ and PFAADT are my two "brand names you're likely to find on amazon" names for these playoffs

― 龜, Monday, October 16, 2023 7:09 PM (one week ago)

in retrospect this is where i jinxed it for the phils :(

Bryce, I see what you're going for, but that's a Sixers jersey and you're trying to win an important game https://t.co/m8p283h10b

— Marc Normandin (@Marc_Normandin) October 24, 2023

https://i.ibb.co/ftPfMLt/IMG-4704.jpg

i was a bit more explicit in the jinx in texting my friend but i guess i also ultimately predicted the ws matchup

oh weird my image didn't post. ah well

I hope Kimbrel doesn't get the Mitch Williams treatment around town.

― clemenza, Tuesday, October 24, 2023 11:39 PM (yesterday)

he absolutely will, lucky for him his contract was up at the end of the season (i think). i imagine he was on the first flight out from PHL this morning before fans get around to doxxing his address.