Phillies punch ticket to postseason by clobbering Mets originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW YORK — They say third time’s a charm.
After falling short consecutive nights to pull out a win, the Phillies finally jumped over the hurdle, crossing off the first of three important goals on the club’s end-of-season checklist — clinching a playoff spot.
The Phillies punched their ticket to the playoffs for a third consecutive season with an explosive 12-2 win over the Mets. It’s just the third time the Phillies have secured postseason appearances in three straight seasons (1967-78, 2007-11).
There were a few scattered glasses of champagne, Rob Thomson toasted his team but aside from that, it was business as usual in the clubhouse.
With bigger goals looming on the horizon, Topper still wanted to take a minute and share his gratitude for his club.
“It’s difficult to get to this point,” Thomson said. “There’s a lot of really good teams out there. You gotta overcome obstacles, whether it’s travel, or injuries or births, whatever it is. These guys have done that. These guys are tough. I just wanted to thank them. I wanted to thank our staff. … I just wanted to toast them.”
Red October is the destination … but there are a few more stops to make along the way.
Friday marked Sanchez’s 30th start of the season — he’s the first left handed pitcher to make 30 starts in a season since Cole Hamels in 2014. Sanchez’s 2024 road numbers have been a bit of an eyesore — and in his 14th start in any location not called Citizens Bank Park — those struggles continued early (though he settled soon after).
On his third pitch of the night, he gave up a home run to Jose Inglesias. This was Inglesias’ first-career leadoff home run, his fourth of the season.
Sanchez wasn’t able to retire the next two batters he faced and it resulted in the Phillies getting out of the first inning in a two-run deficit for the second consecutive night. Not ideal.
What *was* ideal … was seeing the Phillies’ immediate response. Alec Bohm and Nick Castellanos had back-to-back singles followed by Pete Alonso missing a routine popup from J.T. Realmuto to load the bases with no outs.
Only one run crossed the plate on an Edmundo Sosa sacrifice fly. If they didn’t win the game, that would come back to haunt them.
The two-out run production in New York has been a nice change of pace. Five of their six runs scored Thursday night came with two outs. Their second run Friday night…