Take 2: Nick Castellanos, Phillies eliminate Braves again in NLDS

PHILADELPHIA — Disbelief and déjà vu.

This week, the Atlanta Braves returned to Citizens Bank Park intent on burying the past. In last year's National League Division Series, the Philadelphia Phillies sent their division rivals on an early vacation, trouncing the 101-win Braves in a resounding four-game romp. It was as shocking as it was captivating; the cocky, energetic Phils ambushing a World Series favorite into a winter of regret.

On Thursday night, history repeated itself. 

The 2023 Braves, an even more motivated, focused and phenomenal assortment of baseball players, fell victim to the same beast. Their 104 regular-season victories were little solace. Their offense, statistically one of the best ever, scored just eight runs in this NLDS and went especially cold amid losing 3-1 in the decisive Game 4.

Determined to squash their demons, the Braves instead return home with even more, courtesy of a familiar foe. The Phillies, meanwhile, will stay right where they are as they prepare to host the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday in Game 1 of the NLCS. Eliminating Atlanta for the second year in a row, and after another regular season in which the Phillies finished 14 wins worse than their division rival, was just an added bonus. 

"All I can say is, I'm learning that the regular season and the postseason are completely different," said Philly outfielder Nick Castellanos, who became the first player in MLB history to hit two homers in consecutive playoff games. 

As the victorious Phillies doused one another in booze from the comfort of their locker room, a routine that has become hilariously recognizable for them, the Braves performed a very different ritual in theirs.

In the visitors' clubhouse — and the scene of Atlanta's NL East-clinching celebration a month earlier — the familiar sounds of an eliminated ballclub could be heard echoing throughout the room. Hushed tones. The occasional slap-thud of a farewell hug. Heartfelt thank-yous from players to staff. Whispered questions from a nearby media scrum. Suitcases being zipped closed and wheeled out. A Coors Light tall boy — or two or three — being cracked open.

The end of a road often conjures up memories of the journey. These Braves were no different. Many of them surely rushed back at once: the early workouts, the late travel, the lonely rehab stints, the time away from family, the callouses, the hours in the training room, the walk-offs, the bad losses and everything in between. The Braves are an organization built for championships, everything they do is geared toward that singular, communal goal.

Like the phone call catcher Travis d’Arnaud made to welcome fellow All-Star backstop Sean Murphy, when the Braves acquired Murphy over the winter. Or the daily infield drills third base coach Ron Washington runs with his players before each and every game. Or the countless hours of introspection carried out by pitcher Spencer Strider, after the unfortunate end to his 2022 season, to create a record-breaking version of himself. 

"I can tell you this," Strider declared following Atlanta's postseason ouster Thursday, "we're going to give everything we have over the next year to getting back to this position and making sure we don't have it happen this way again."

Eventually, most of the Braves players changed into their team-issued all-black sweatsuits — a fitting choice for the occasion — and headed toward the bus, toward a long winter. Every season, only one team wins the whole thing. The eleven playoff losers all experience some version of what the Braves felt tonight: heavy knots in their chests, lumps in their throats, a mind full of what-coulda-been.

"It's tough. It takes a while to get over something like this after the year we had, the expectation we have here," Atlanta skipper Brian Snitker said afterward. "But you know what, it's — all the credit, I mean the Phillies stifled us. I mean, they pitched really well. They had great plans. Their guys got big hits. I mean, you can't take anything away from that. Oh, my God. We got beat and didn't play good enough to win the series. It's as simple as that. We got beat by a really good club that has a pension for this time of year."

That was best exemplified by three swings Thursday.

A trio of solo home runs — from Castellanos in the fourth and sixth, and Trea Turner in the fifth — ultimately served as a stunning final chapter to the Braves' season while raising the stakes in the Phillies' ongoing October story. Prior to Game 4, Strider had allowed just one home run this season against right-handed hitters. But the Phillies sat on the pitch early and often. Both Castellanos’ first homer and Turner’s shot were off subpar, hanging sliders that caught too much plate. 

Neither Phillie missed.

The shortcomings of the Braves’ strikeout wizard were not the prevailing issue in Game 4, however. Neither were the theatrics between Orlando Arcia and Bryce Harper from earlier in the week.

This contest, and really the entire series, came down to Atlanta’s missing offense.

For whatever reason, be it small-sample-size randomness or the bright lights of October or the inhospitable environment at Citizens Bank Park, the Braves' vaunted bats did not post. In Game 3, they were restricted to just two runs by an on-point Aaron Nola. On Thursday, with their season on the brink, they scored half as many.

That lone run, a fourth-inning Austin Riley solo shot, was the only damage done off Philadelphia starter Ranger Suárez, who delivered five strong frames in yet another magnificent playoff outing. But a window opened with two outs in the seventh, after a trio of walks loaded the bases, bringing presumptive NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. to the plate. 

All series long, the Phillies had succeeded against Acuña with a barrage of inside fastballs. Get in under his hands, the plan seemed, and you could limit the sport’s most dynamic force. With a 2-2 count, nine-time All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel challenged Acuña with a 95.8 mph heater on the inner edge of the strike zone. 

Another inch over the plate and Acuña, who went 2-for-14 in the series, has a grand slam that probably sends both these teams back to Atlanta for a Game 5. Kimbrel, though, got the pitch just in enough that the ball — after freezing a stadium filled with 42,901 fans — landed a few feet shy of the wall and in the glove of a leaping Johan Rojas in left-center field.

Two innings later, baseball’s best team was officially no more. 

Its season for the ages, full of historic accomplishments, was now complete with the final goal left unrealized. In this league, the regular season means little. The Braves know that all too well, as do the reigning NL champion Phillies, who strut on to a second consecutive NLCS after clubbing 10 homers over their past five games. Red October is again in full effect. 

"I think it's a combination of talent and makeup," Phillies manager Rob Thomson asserted. "We got a really talented group. But, they are tough. And they have short memories. They have short memories for negative things, and they have long memories for positive things. And they just come out and they fight every day. And I love being around them. They have a lot of fun, but when it's game time, they're focused and they compete."

The Braves, of course, won't compete again until next spring. And while they will likely be in playoff contention next fall — they are too talented, too well-built not to be — Thursday night was a particularly painful farewell for an unforgettable ballclub. Its great expectations, now unmet, have produced greater pain. That juxtaposition was present on the faces of all players and staff as they left the yard late Thursday. 

The 11 months of work, effort, love and passion that hide beneath the iceberg of October make any sort of elimination tough to swallow. But for the 2023 Braves — one of the most impressive clubs of the 21st century — their quick and early exit is all the more sour. 

"When you put on this uniform, as a team we expect nothing more than a World Series," veteran Atlanta reliever A.J. Minter said. "A lot of organizations aren't that way, and I think that's what separates us. We've had a lot of personal achievements this year that were truly incredibly, and I couldn't be more happy for those guys. But as a team, we failed." 

The Braves will carry that weight on their shoulders as they trudge through the offseason because they know — every last one of them knows — what they could have accomplished.

The pain is greater, the despondence fiercer, when you truly believe.

Jake Mintz, the louder half of @CespedesBBQ is a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He played college baseball, poorly at first, then very well, very briefly. Jake lives in New York City where he coaches Little League and rides his bike, sometimes at the same time. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.