On Tuesday afternoon, the Phillies dropped to 0-1 in their Wild Card playoff series vs the Atlanta Braves with a tough 5-3 road loss at Truist Park. The Phillies will now play for their season on Wednesday afternoon as they look to stave off elimination and force a decisive Game 3.
The Phillies led this game 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning, but reliever Jhoan Duran ended up giving up a home run to Braves star Austin Riley to give Atlanta its final margin of victory, and recently, Chris Rose put the blame on executive Dave Dombrowski for not building a better bullpen.
“Don Mattingly really didn't have anywhere to turn. In their last nine playoff games, they've given up a total of 41 runs. 35 have come from the sixth inning on. That's 85 percent of the runs. They have not figured it out. Dave Dombrowski has never been a really good bullpen architect, and that just continued to rear its ugly head,” he said, per Chris Rose Sports on X, formerly Twitter.
Article Continues BelowIndeed, bullpen concerns have been a glaring red flag for the Phillies all year, with many fans predicting that the team's incompetence in that department would come back to bite them in a postseason setting for a second straight year, and that's exactly what ended up happening during Tuesday's loss to the Braves.
Perhaps if the Phillies go on to lose the series, Dombrowski's hand will be forced to make a more significant investment in the bullpen this offseason.
For now, Philadelphia will turn its attention to Game 2 vs the Braves on Wednesday afternoon, once again from Truist Park in Atlanta.

