The pitcher on the mound for the final out Monday night in Los Angeles was on school pickup duty four months ago.

The first go-ahead homer was hit by a guy with more at-bats in Triple A this year than the majors.

The winning run was scored by a player on his sixth club in four years, who went unsigned into February.

It’s too much to brand the Philadelphia Phillies, your two-time National League East champions, as plucky upstarts in 2025, as a band of misfits in whom no one believed. Their talent and pedigree prevents that. But adversity is baked into the journey the Phillies have taken to a fourth straight postseason berth, sealed in the wee hours of the Philadelphia morning by David Robertson, Weston Wilson, Harrison Bader and company with a 6-5 win over Los Angeles.

The metric that m

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