Thanks to their second straight NL East championship and fourth straight playoff berth overall, the Philadelphia Phillies have ushered in Red October once again. This year, however, things will be a bit different. This regular season was a lot of fun thanks to the exploits of Cristopher Sánchez, Kyle Schwarber and others, but it was largely a formality. The real season is about to begin, and this one is for keeps.
When the Phillies began this run in 2022, there was a newness to it, and the fanbase was just glad to see them back in the playoffs for the first time in a decade. The 2023 postseason was supposed to see the team get over the hump, but they frittered away a 3-1 NLCS lead to an inferior Arizona team, and then things took an even more disastrous turn in last year's NLDS loss to the hated New York Mets.
These events have all combined to make the stakes as high as they've ever been in the postseason for the 2025 edition of the Phillies.
Phillies are facing the most pressure they ever have heading into 2025 MLB playoffs
When you look back on the Phillies' not-so-lengthy playoff history, there can be no debate about the urgency of 2025 compared to other seasons. You'd have to go back to the first time that the Phillies ever put together a true run for any kind of comparable scenario. The team endured three successive NLCS losses in 1976, 1977 and 1978, which must have felt awful for a fanbase that had yet to see a World Series win in the history of the franchise.
That made the 1980 season a pressure-packed one (the team had missed the playoffs in 1979), and they finally delivered under all that strain. The 1980 win made that team's successive playoff trips in 1981 and 1983 feel less urgent and not as disappointing when they fell short, although another win for that core would have been nice for sure.
The 1993 Phillies can be pretty accurately called "lightning in a bottle" and don't figure into this exercise, but take a look at the team from 2007 through 2011. The 2007 season was a cathartic campaign, with the joy of finally making it superseding any kind of real expectation.
The team made the leap right to champions in 2008, which felt amazing at the time but represented them peaking too early. They took successive steps back in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and those end results go down as bitter disappointments. But at least fans can point to the one title that those Phillies were able to win.
Time is running out for this current core of Phillies to win a World Series
Now, when it comes to this group, the clock is ticking. Schwarber is not guaranteed to be back next year, and the same goes for J.T. Realmuto, to say nothing of other changes that may be coming in the rotation, outfield and elsewhere.
The Phillies will sorely miss the presence of Zack Wheeler in this year's playoffs, but they are in a position where even such a harsh blow shouldn't be fatal to their chances. When they take the field on Oct. 4 against the Dodgers, the mad dash will begin. Eleven wins to glory. Or, as they painfully found out in last year's miserable loss to the Mets, you can be done in the blink of an eye if you're not ready.
Everyone's picking the Phillies to win the World Series, huh? Got you nervous, huh?
— John Stolnis (@JohnStolnis) September 30, 2025
Everyone picked the Dodgers to win last year. They did.
Everyone picked the Astros to win in 2022. They did.
Sometimes you're so good, it doesn't matter. The 2025 Phillies are that team.
Everything has aligned for this Phillies club to deliver a championship, and these heightened expectations have effectively sent the pressure level through the roof. The whole "Bryce Harper era" or whatever you might call this collection of Phillies seasons could be defined by the next month.
There must be changes and ramifications if this team falls short because, without a clear juggernaut across the league, the torch has passed to the Phillies to stake their claim in these playoffs. They are victims of their own success and the pressure is on big time as a result.