Phillies’ NL East celebration comes with unique notion: “To cross off step 1 is a great feeling”
Sep 15, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; designated hitter Kyle Schwarber (12) and the Philadelphia Phillies celebrate after clinching the Nationall League East division title at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images
Winning never gets old, especially with this Phillies core.
The celebrations and parties in the clubhouse, which a lot of times make it across the street to Xfinity Live in Philadelphia, are always electrifying. Sometimes, the Phils can get called out for reveling a little too hard.
Every season since 2022, the Phillies have taken one step back in the postseason. World Series, NLCS, and NLDS losers. They have subtracted one celebration every year.
In 2025, there seems to be something different.
This year, in what could be the last dance with this core of players who have helped the Phillies reach the postseason four straight seasons, the urgency seemed to kick up a notch. September 15 is the earliest in a season that they have claimed a division title in franchise history. They are playing their best baseball right now, something we have not seen over the past four years. Everyone is producing, even with Trea Turner and Alec Bohm currently out of the lineup.
“You’ve got to enjoy this,” Kyle Schwarber, who hit his 53rd home run to start off the ballgame in Monday night’s 6-5 win over the Dodgers to clinch the division, told Tom McCarthy postgame. “This doesn’t happen all the time.”
It is easy to get lost in the moment in these situations. However, the No. 1 message coming out of the tight and torn-apart visiting team clubhouse at Dodger Stadium was the focus and determination on the road ahead.
“We’re a really good team,” Bryce Harper, who smoked a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning Monday night, said. “I think we’re playing really good baseball right now, and we’ve just got to keep going and keep understanding we’ve got a bigger picture.”
The Phillies landed in LAX just before 2:00 a.m. local time, 5:00 a.m. in Philadelphia, after a 10-3 loss to the Royals at home that afternoon, with a chance to clinch the division at home. They waited for nearly five hours for a new plane to replace one with mechanical problems. Roughly 20 hours after that 10-3 loss, the Phillies came away with an extra-innings clinch and celebration.
On the field, the celebration was diminutive. After David Robertson got the save on a ground ball to Harper at first, the Phillies gathered beside the mound, high-fived, hugged, put on their shirts and hats, and took a picture. In the past, we have seen the Phillies jump up and down for a clinch of this class.
Not this team.
“Winning the division is great,” Bryson Stott said in the wee hours of the morning Eastern time, “but we know there’s still more work to do.”
This is a much more mature ball club. This Phillies team knows what it takes to win. They have had their stutters in the past, but they all know what it means to get there.
“To kind of cross off step one, I think, is just a great feeling,” Harrison Bader said in the clubhouse. “There’s a lot more work, but it’s nice to just celebrate the small victories. On to the next one.”
One of those things it takes to win is everyone stepping up. The Phillies partied Monday night without two of their highest-paid and most star players. Zack Wheeler is preparing for thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, and Turner is recovering from a Grade 1 hamstring strain.
Wheeler has been out since mid-August and will not return this season. The Phils have been without Turner since early September. He is on track to return by Game 1 of the postseason.
It is easy for a team to crumble down and die when they go without two players of that caliber.
The Phils, however, have not missed a beat.
Cristopher Sanchez, Jesus Luzardo, and Ranger Suarez have all stepped up. They have received good outings from Taijuan Walker and Aaron Nola along the way, and Walker Buehler made an excellent first impression.
Earning a World Series championship will be harder without Wheeler, obviously. However, if these starters keep riding high, anything is possible.
Meanwhile, the Phillies have filled Turner’s void with the guys you would not totally expect. Weston Wilson, who hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning Monday night, has been slugging at a .400 rate over his last 15 games. Stott has picked it up again; he is hitting .417 over the past week. Brandon Marsh has a .450 on-base percentage over his last 15 games. Platoon partners Max Kepler and Nick Castellanos have been holding the fort down in the middle of the order.
But where would the Phillies be without Bader? In 39 games in red pinstripes, Bader is slashing .338/.399/.519 with a .917 OPS. He is making plays that win the Phillies ballgames. Yes, he went 0-4 Monday night, but in the top of the 10th, as the ghost runner at second base, he and Harper executed a perfect double steal, and then rumbled home to score the winning run off of J.T. Realmuto‘s sac-fly.
Winning plays from a winning player.
“It’s what I dream about, honestly,” Bader said when asked if he envisioned himself having this much of an impact in just a month and a half. “It’s what I try to visualize every single day and try to take it just one day at a time. And I’m just thankful for the opportunity, honestly. Just getting an opportunity is really what it’s all about, and just doing your best to run with it as far as you can. I’m just excited to do it for such an amazing franchise and just keep winning games.”
“What’s different this year for me is the adversity this team has overcome,” Phillies managing partner John Middleton said to Matt Gelb of The Athletic after funneling beers with Garrett Stubbs. “I mean, there’s serious problems. Zack’s out. Trea’s out. Bryce has been nursing a bad wrist all season. And they just kept coming back. And, to me, this game was a microcosm of their season. It was a championship game. It was October baseball.”
Monday presented a back-and-forth, playoff-type battle all night at Dodger Stadium. It took the Phils six innings to get a hit after Schwarber’s homer in the first. Suarez battled six tough innings against such a lethal Dodgers lineup. Wilson and Harper both hit go-ahead homers. Orion Kerkering and Jhoan Duran washed them away. And the 40-year-old Robertson, whom the Phillies took a shot at, closed the door with the bases loaded in the 10th.
It was poetic in a way that this is how the Phils clinched their 13th division title in franchise history. A grind-it-out, gutsy win, truly putting to use their nickname popularized during the 1950s “Whiz Kids” era, the Fightin Phils.
But they still know the job is not finished. The Phillies now have a 5.5-game lead over the Dodgers for a first-round bye. If they win one more game in this series, they will hold the tiebreaker. The magic number to clinch a first-round bye is seven with 11 games to play. The one-seed is still in play, but the Brewers control their own destiny with a 1.5-game lead over the Phils.
“Last year, we kind of limped into the finish line,” Realmuto said. “We’re playing really good baseball right now. And that’s what it takes. So we want to take these next two weeks seriously. The rest of these games matter. Continue this momentum into the postseason. But it definitely feels different. There’s a lot of confidence in this room right now.”
The Philles have played their best baseball all year over the last six weeks. That is not something the 2022, 2023, or 2024 team can say.
Something feels different about this team. The businessman celebration, the approach, their outlook, and even Realmuto’s answer to Rob Thomson‘s annual question.
“J.T.,” Thomson said, “how many we got left, buddy?”
Realmuto, who typically responds with a quantitative answer, provided qualitative data instead.
“Whatever the hell it takes, Topper!”
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