PHILADELPHIA — This was more than a random night on the 162-game schedule; the standings dictated as much. And in the sixth inning, as Cristopher Sánchez’s pitch count rose and the Philadelphia Phillies trailed, a smattering of people began to clap. There were no prompts on the scoreboard, nothing to tell those inside Citizens Bank Park this was an important moment to make noise. They knew.The clapping grew into a cheer. Sánchez lost the batter to a walk. He struck out the next man. There was added juice Friday night until there wasn’t. Did it feel like a postseason game?“No, not really,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “I mean, you feel it here when it’s a playoff game. So, not really on that end. It was a really important game, as is every other game that we’ve had this year. Couldn’t win it tonight.”How a 90-mile stretch could decide the World SeriesKen RosenthalThe Phillies have not secured a postseason berth, but they have done the heavy lifting. Now, games like Friday’s 5-2 loss to the division-leading Atlanta Braves are viewed through the prism of the playoffs. The Phillies will be known as a team that cannot conquer high-quality pitching until they do so. They are a team that is outdone in the smallest details until they prove otherwise. They are a team with a superpower — three Game 1-type starting pitchers — until the bullpen door opens.They did not lose Friday’s series opener, which dropped them five games behind Atlanta in the National League East, because of what happened in the eighth inning. Sánchez had a rare three-run hiccup in the second inning; that was enough for Chris Sale and the Braves. But Orion Kerkering surrendered a two-run homer to Mauricio Dubón in the eighth that effectively ended any comeback bid by a team that specializes in late-game comebacks.It was hard not to think about October — and the inning that came before Kerkering’s latest stumble.“Just not making the pitch when he needs it, right?” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. “We’ve seen it in a couple of different games, but I like his stuff. He’s one of our better arms in almost any situation.”Mattingly doesn’t need to say it out loud; there is enough evidence that rookie righty Alex McFarlane has surpassed Kerkering in the hierarchy of trusted bullpen arms. McFarlane pitched a scoreless seventh inning, throwing eight pitches, all of them for strikes.The juxtaposition was a little too obvious.“He’s been working his way up, for sure,” Mattingly said of McFarlane, 25. “He’s throwing the ball well. Nothing not to like at this point.”The Phillies like their chances come postseason time because their rotation can match anyone else’s. It was their strength the previous two postseasons, though they failed to advance beyond the National League Division Series each time. They were outscored 31-19 from the sixth inning on in those eight postseason games from 2024 to 2025.They have allowed 36 runs total in the previous two postseasons. That means 86 percent of the runs scored against the Phillies in the last two postseasons have come in the final four innings. Most of them have been charged to relievers.And Kerkering, the man who was once the shiny new bullpen toy like McFarlane is now, remains a symbol of past postseason bullpen failures. The Phillies fell in love with Kerkering’s sweeping slider when he rose from Low A to the majors in 2023. He tasted failure in that year’s National League Championship Series, when it all started to crumble for the Phillies. He was more reliable but still shaky in 2024. He was on the mound when the season ended in 2025, an indelible mistake that will always live with him.But the Phillies stood by the now-25-year-old reliever. They supported him in the aftermath of that series-ending error against the Los Angeles Dodgers. They invested $22 million in a better setup man, Brad Keller, only for him to succumb to elbow surgery in July. They started giving Jonathan Bowlan, largely unproven, more eighth-inning chances than Kerkering.Kerkering threw 20 pitches Friday night, and Braves hitters swung-and-missed at one of them. His whiff rate has been on a steep decline all season. The pitch before Dubón homered, Kerkering threw a sweeper up and in that caught the corner of the strike zone. Dubón flinched, thinking the ball was going to clip him. It was nowhere close to his body.“I couldn’t see it,” Dubón said.Kerkering doesn’t accomplish that without plus stuff. But the next pitch, another sweeper, just floated at the top of the zone.“I was just looking, literally, ball up,” Dubón said. “I took a good swing, and it ended up leaving the yard.”It was a microcosm of the Kerkering experience. He now has a 4.12 ERA. The Phillies were committed to him until better options emerged. Right now, McFarlane is that.“Dude, I mean, he’s really good,” Phillies first baseman Alec Bohm said. “I’m glad he’s on our team. I feel like he’s just getting more and more confident every time he gets out there. And that’s going to be huge for us down the stretch. I mean, he’s got elite stuff. It’s a very talented arm. The more and more that kid can get his feet wet for us and just get comfortable out there is going to be really important.”The Phillies once felt this way about Kerkering. He came to the majors with a fastball that averaged 98 mph. He did not touch 98 mph in Friday’s outing; he’s been more 95-96 mph in the last few weeks.McFarlane, who is in his first full season as a reliever, came with strike-throwing concerns. He has shed those with each outing in the majors. He warmed up for much of the sixth inning, didn’t enter when Sánchez escaped trouble, then appeared in the seventh and still looked sharp.Michael Harris II grounded out on a 100 mph fastball. Ronald Acuña Jr. squibbed an infield hit off a 101 mph fastball. Drake Baldwin swung through a sweeping slider. Ozzie Albies popped out on a first-pitch, 99 mph fastball. McFarlane has permitted one earned run in 11 1/3 innings.“It’s 100, and it’s moving,” Bohm said. “So, yeah. Really happy with what he’s been doing. It’s been cool to see him come up and have success. It’s good for him; it’s good for us; it’s good for everybody.”Except, probably, Kerkering. The Phillies have three weeks to settle on a bullpen plan. It’s hard to imagine McFarlane not filling a prominent role, and maybe that is what they’ll remember from a disappointing Friday night in September.— Tyler Kepner contributed to this report.