HOUSTON — He had managed the game of his life, recognizing this moment in the 118th World Series called for absolute aggression, and now Rob Thomson sauntered into the winning clubhouse at Minute Maid Park with his pants unbuckled. He held a Miller Lite can in his hand. It was 11 minutes after midnight in Texas, not long after a 4-hour, 34-minute epic that will live forever in Phillies lore.
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Thomson scanned the room and he saw his players — confident yet blessed with blissful ignorance about how brazen the Phillies’ assault on October is. They answered question after question about how they erased a five-run deficit against a future Hall of Fame pitcher, and about how they matched the best bullpen in baseball out-for-out all the way into extra innings in a thrilling 6-5 Phillies win over the Astros in Game 1.
“I felt like we just had to go,” Thomson said. “It worked out.”
Go meant Thomson raising his left arm, calling for one of his best relievers, after removing starter Aaron Nola with one out in the fifth inning Friday night. As Thomson remained on the mound with the Phillies infielders, waiting for José Alvarado to arrive, the manager realized what he had done. “This is the earliest I’ve ever brought him in,” Thomson said to them. They nodded.
“We saw Alvy coming in,” shortstop Bryson Stott said, “and we were like, ‘Oh, he means business today.’”
Everything Thomson had done since he became the manager in June had led to this moment. Another team, another manager, another night, and maybe this would have felt desperate. The Phillies had just tied the game, 5-5. Nola had thrown only 81 pitches. Going to Alvarado then meant Ranger Suárez, the presumptive Game 3 starter, would have to enter Game 1 as a reliever. Going to Alvarado then meant exposing the rest of the bullpen to more pressure-packed spots.
Instead, the Phillies viewed it as their manager showing his confidence in them. This game, this team — this was worth managing like there was no tomorrow.
“We have the momentum on our side, we need to get these outs against three of their toughest hitters,” J.T. Realmuto said of Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker. “And I thought that was huge. Not all managers would bring one of their best guys in that early in the game. And he just (pushed) all the right buttons from there, and the guys responded.”
Thomson had not been aggressive in the second game of the National League Championship Series. He went to Brad Hand, not Alvarado, in the middle of that game. Ever since, Thomson has taken more risks. “I trust anything that man does,” Nick Castellanos said. It was not a trust built in October. It blossomed in June and flourished in July and August, only to be tested in September. In October, Thomson knows the pulse of his team at all times.
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“The guys we have and the mindset of the team, it’s taken as we’re going after these guys,” Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham said. “Maybe a different team, a different identity, it might read as we’re not confident. But it’s worked.”
The Phillies are three wins from a championship. Thomson cradled the beer and grinned.
“It’s like my father said,” Thomson said. “When good sh–t lands in your lap, you have to know how to take credit for it.”
They have the meeting before every game and Friday afternoon was no different. Everyone does their preparation separately; this generates the most robust conversation in Thomson’s office. Cotham asks his sidekicks — assistant pitching coach Brian Kaplan and bullpen coach Dave Lundquist — to do their homework without consulting one another. They all have a quick chat before entering Thomson’s office to make sure they are in the same ballpark, and then it’s time.
“You don’t want to script the game by any means,” Cotham said. “But you do want to have a plan to put the guys in the best spot possible to have success. And we got a bunch of dudes that are selfless. They take the ball and just go get outs.”
The pitching coaches, along with Thomson and bench coach Mike Calitri, came to a consensus. Zack Wheeler, with an extra day of rest, would pitch Game 2 on Saturday. There is an off day after that. All signs pointed to one thing.
“This is probably the game to be aggressive if we had to,” Cotham said. “The game kind of just dictated that. It just felt like the thing to do.”
Soon after Suárez threw two pitches to win the NL pennant, the Phillies thought about using him as a reliever at the beginning of the World Series. Two days before Game 1, Cotham said they honed in on the decision. If there was a moment in Game 1 or 2 when the Phillies needed a lefty not named Alvarado for the pocket of Houston’s lineup that features Alvarez and Tucker, Suárez was the man. “He’s in,” Cotham said. “He wants to win.” Suárez walked to the bullpen between the third and fourth innings on Friday night.
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He struck out Alvarez to end the seventh, but as he started to walk toward the dugout, he noticed the painted World Series logo. He veered around it.
“Honestly, the only difference is that it is a World Series,” Suárez said. “The name is different, but it’s the same game so I just go out there and have fun.”
Alvarado, Zach Eflin and Suárez combined for nine outs on 38 pitches. They navigated the middle of the Astros lineup twice and handed it to Seranthony Domínguez, who entered with one out in the eighth. He recorded five outs. He has faced 32 batters this postseason and struck out 18 of them. Domínguez might not be available for Game 2, but Alvarado and Eflin will. Suárez could still start Game 3.
“You come into the game early or late, you don’t need to change anything,” Alvarado said. “It’s the same baseball. The only thing that changed is there are more people, and that’s it.”
There were so many people crowded on the dirt in front of the Phillies dugout before the game that players had to squeeze through just to step onto the field for batting practice. It was not just another game. The Astros are inevitable, and this World Series is supposed to be their validation for assembling an efficient machine. The Phillies are a beautiful, chaotic mess that crashed the party already three drinks deep.
“We really respect all 27 outs and we take that seriously,” Castellanos said. “And we take it personal.”
They needed 30 outs Friday because the game bled into a 10th inning after Castellanos’ sliding catch in right field ended the ninth. David Robertson could not finish the pennant clincher in Philadelphia, but the Phillies were forced to ask him again to save a game. All he had to do was face the heart of Houston’s lineup. Ever since the Phillies acquired Robertson at the trade deadline, he has talked about redemption for logging a total of 6 2/3 innings for them while being paid $23 million from 2019 to 2020.
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Robertson is 37 and he’s surviving with smoke and mirrors right now. The Astros put two runners on base. Cotham went to the mound when Aledmys Díaz pinch hit with two outs. He wanted to go over the attack plan, but he really wanted to just give Robertson a break.
“You make one pitch, we’re out of this thing,” Cotham told him. “We win this f—ing game.”
Robertson made one pitch — only after the runners advanced to second and third, and Díaz had whiffed at a 3-0 slider that was probably ball four — and the Phillies had done it.
“It’s what you have to do in the World Series,” Eflin said. “Manage to win the game by any means necessary. And everybody on the team is ready for any situation. So whenever our names are called, we’re going to be ready for it.”
The plan is not overly complicated; the Phillies have attempted to extract as many innings from their best pitchers as they can this month. That requires those pitchers to be willing (and durable enough) to pitch whenever needed.
“I’m not really doing the work,” Thomson said. “The players are doing the work. I’m just sort of making the final decision on who goes where.”
It works both ways. “We all have his back,” Kyle Schwarber said. “Throughout the course of the year, he’s pushed the right buttons.” There is luck involved — like Justin Verlander botching a sure double play. Lucky, confident, over-served and unaware — whatever. This was a night Phillies fans will never forget.
“It was a good game,” Thomson said. No, wait, even he could not undersell this. This? Thomson corrected himself.
“A great game.”
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(Top photo of José Alvarado exiting in the sixth inning: Eric Gay / Associated Press)
