After dealing poorly with a week’s worth of suffocating pressure, the Phillies finally took a breath Sunday. They did something they’d done 87 other times this season, something that had become very difficult for them lately. They won a ball game. But it was no ordinary ball game. It saved their season and spared them the ignominy of forever popping up in search engines whenever someone wondered about the biggest sports collapses of all time. On the backs of Zack Wheeler and an offense that suddenly rose from the dead, the Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 7-3, at Citizens Bank Park on the final day of the regular season to punch their ticket to the postseason as the National League’s third and final wild-card team. Moments after the victory, manager Don Mattingly, soaked in champagne in the postgame clubhouse celebration, was asked if he was feeling more relief or exhilaration. “A little bit of both,” he said. “It’s never easy. But I feel like this is what it’s supposed to be today. For whatever reason, this is how it was supposed to happen for the 2026 Phillies. Getting in is the key. You just have to get in. Now, it’s just a matter of playing better baseball than them.” The Phillies, who finished the regular season at 88-74, will begin their fifth straight postseason Tuesday afternoon at Atlanta against a familiar foe. The Braves beat the Phillies in nine of 13 meetings on their way to the NL East title this season. But the Phillies are 3-0 all-time against the Braves in postseason series. “Obviously, we wanted to (clinch) two weeks ago,” Bryce Harper said. “But, you know, it just wasn’t written that way. This is the start of the story right here. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We’ll see what happens. That’s a really good team down there in Atlanta. We’re going to face the best left-handed pitcher (Chris Sale) in the world, so we’ll see.” The final days of this regular season were excruciating for the Phillies and their fans. The Phillies had entered the month of September as the top team in the wild-card standings with a 6 ½ game lead over Arizona, the last team out. With five games to play in the regular season, the Phils were four up on Arizona. Then the losses started piling up and the pressure mounted. People started throwing around references to 1964, the year the Phillies were on their way to the World Series before they infamously blew a 6 ½ game lead with 12 to play. Arizona needed the combination of a win over the San Diego Padres and a Phillies loss Sunday to earn a postseason spot over the Phillies. If both teams lost, the Phillies would have advanced. In the end, the Phillies shook off a difficult final few days and stepped through the front door. “There are 162 games in a season and it took us 162 to get in,” Harper said. “What does it matter? We wanted to do it two weeks ago and we should have. But, for me, I don’t care. We got in.” Wheeler thought he was done for the regular season after he struck out 11 Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night. He – and everyone else around the Phillies – thought his next start would come in Game 1 of the Wild Card series. But the team’s late spiral and near collapse forced Wheeler to take the mound in an SOS situation – Save Our Season – Sunday afternoon. He delivered six innings of one-run ball. “Vintage Wheels,” Harper said. “I can’t say enough about him. Being able to rely on him to be Wheels every single time he goes out there. Sometimes it’s not fair, but that’s what we expect out of him. That’s what he does. It’s just a lot of fun to watch.” Pitching in blustery conditions as rain from a nor’easter tapered off just long enough to get the game in, Wheeler struck out the side in the first inning and did not allow a run until Jonny DeLuca homered in the fifth. By that time, the Phils had a 4-0 lead thanks to an awakening from an offense that had hit just .163 and scored only three runs in the previous four games, all losses. “This was like the playoffs, win or go home,” Wheeler said. “I was just pitching like it was win or go home. To see those guys (the offense) get going gave me a little extra comfort out there on the mound of not having to be perfect with every pitch. It’s always good when you have that backing.” The Phillies had six extra-base hits. Harper and Sosa homered both homered in the fifth inning. Harper’s homer, a screamer to right, was his 29th of the season and just his second in a span of 27 games. Kyle Schwarber, one of the recently slumping Phillies, singled with one out in the first inning and scored on a double to right by Bryson Stott. The hit gave the Phils their first lead since Tuesday. It brought the crowd alive and replaced the boos of previous days with cheers. The Phillies hitters relaxed and stopped pressing. They got four more hits in the second inning, including three doubles. J.T. Realmuto broke out of an 0-for-32 skid with an RBI double and Schwarber capped it all with a two-run double that resulted in more big cheers. Mattingly had an interesting observation about the crowd. “That was one of our better crowds, I thought,” he said. “You don’t hear a lot of, ‘Let’s go, Phillies,’ at our games. It’s just waiting for things, right? And it would be great if it would be like an uplifting type scenario than a …. You know, in the Milwaukee series, somebody makes an out in the fourth inning with a guy on base and it’s like a boo, and I know it’s the fans right to do it – like, you can either lift up or you can hold down. And when you lift a team up, you’ve got a game.” Wheeler, who missed the final six weeks of last season and the first month of this season due to surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, was brilliant in his 27th and most important start of the season. He held the American League’s top team to five hits and a run over his six innings of work. He walked none and struck out five. He finished the season 14-5 with a 3.00 ERA. He reached exactly 162 innings, which qualified him for the seventh-best ERA in the NL. After Wheeler exited, Mattingly went to Alex McFarlane, Jesus Luzardo and Jhoan Duran to close it out. Luzardo, who came off the injured list earlier in the day, retired the side on four pitches in the eighth. His fastball reached 97 mph. His healthy return was good news for a team that has lived to see another day. Just get in. It wasn’t easy, but the 2026 Phillies have done that. ...read more read less