Phillies Go 0-For-12 With Runners in Scoring Position In Loss To Brewers, Keeping Postseason Magic Number At 2

The Phillies playoff celebration will have to wait another day.

Believe it or not, October is almost here, and with it comes postseason baseball. Six months ago, the 2026 MLB season kicked off, and after long months of losing streaks, winning streaks and walk-off winners, the Philadelphia Phillies are on the verge of clinching their fifth straight playoff berth.

Winning the National League East is unfortunately a lost cause, as the Braves clinched a few nights ago, meaning the Phillies would have to go the Wild Card route to make the postseason. The Wild Card race has been a dogfight in the second half between the Phillies, Cubs, Padres and Diamondbacks, as all four clubs have kept it close.

Heading into Wednesday night, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego were tied in record, and the Phillies magic number sat at two. Step one was for the team to knock off the Milwaukee Brewers for the second night in a row, and then wait and see if they could celebrate if Arizona lost.

Unfortunately for Philadelphia, they couldn’t hold up their end of the deal. More specifically, the Phillies offense couldn’t hold up their end of the deal. Phillies batters went an astonishing 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, as they were unable to get any type of run support all night long. Six of the nine innings at the plate saw the Phillies have a runner at second or third, and they were only able to score in one of those innings.

All season long, the Phillies have struggled to create runs in small-ball fashion, and tonight’s loss was no different. The entire game saw the Phillies have opportunities to scrape across runs and keep themselves in the game, but the situational hitting wasn’t apparent, and the clutch hits from the team were nonexistent.

Aaron Nola was on the mound for Philadelphia, and while he wasn’t perfect, his recent solid stretch of outings continued. He allowed four runs, but two came on two solo homers, and another came on a 78.1 mph single. A few bad pitches and lucky spot base hits made Nola’s evening not a good one, but what truly lost him this game was the lack of run support.

While the offense would disappoint later in the night for Philadelphia, Milwaukee got after Nola right away, with Brice Turang smoking a two-out solo home run in the top of the first, giving the Brewers an early 1-0 lead. It was Turang’s 20th home run of the season, marking the first time in his career the second baseman hit 20 home runs or more in a season.

After a quiet bottom half of the first, Christian Yelich doubled Milwaukee’s lead in the second with another two-out solo home run for his 12th of the season. Philadelphia answered back in their half of the second, thanks to their first three baserunners of the game: a single from Alec Bohm, a double from Bryson Stott and a walk from Brandon Marsh loaded the bases.

With no outs and the bases juiced, J.T. Realmuto grounded into a force out, scoring one run, but a not-deep-enough flyout from Justin Crawford was out number two, and Kyle Schwarber grounded out to end the inning, with Philadelphia scoring just one run.

In the third, the Brewers kept the runs coming across the plate, doing exactly what the Phillies struggled to do all night. A walk to David Hamilton and a double from Turang set up two runners in scoring position, and William Contreras smacked a 78.1 mph ground ball single to left, doubling Milwaukee’s run total once again.

Now down 4-1, the runs just could never be manufactured for the Phillies. The fourth inning saw no movement on a one-out double, and in the fifth, a leadoff single and walk put two runners on, but three straight strikeouts ended that inning of attack.

The bottom of the seventh saw probelm the biggest disappointment inning, as after Schwarber and Trea Turner reached base thanks to a hit by pitch and a single, Bryce Harper and Luis Arraez grounded into weak groundouts to end the inning.

When it was all said and done, the Phillies managed to leave 10 men on base, going 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, with Milwaukee winning 4-1. With the loss, the Phillies’ magic number remained at two, forcing them to have to wait another day to see if they can clinch a playoff spot.

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