Dave Dombrowski not over Phillies’ 2023 NLCS loss: ‘They’ll linger for the rest of my life’
Dave Dombrowski still isn’t over last year’s National League Championship Series.
The longtime major-league executive and current Phillies president of baseball operations thought his team had a second consecutive trip to the World Series in hand returning home with a 3-2 series lead over the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks. Philadelphia dropped Games 6 and 7 at Citizens Bank Park to squander a ready-made chance for the pennant.
Dombrowski watched as the Phillies failed to meet the moment. Those two losses will sit with him forever.
“They’ll linger for the rest of my life,” Dombrowski said. “I’ve been part of series — I can go back to 2006 and 2013 and tell you a series we should have won and why I thought we should have won, and we got beat. I remember them to this day, and I told the people last year, ‘You’ll remember this the rest of your lives.'”
He spoke about the lasting disappointment of the 2023 NLCS as part of a larger discussion regarding the randomness of the MLB postseason during a 25-minute conversation with reporters at the Phillies’ workout day on Tuesday afternoon. Philadelphia has five days off after clinching a bye in the NL playoff picture as the No. 2 seed and awaits the winner of the Mets and Brewers in the Wild Card Series. The Phillies will host that opponent in Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Saturday.
Last year’s group was hardly the first that Dombrowski has seen waste an opportunity or lose to an inferior team. Since becoming the general manager of the Montreal Expos in 1988 at age 31, he’s made the World Series five times with four different franchises, winning in 1997 with the Florida Marlins and 2018 with the Boston Red Sox. Leading so many teams with high expectations leaves lots of time for playoff wins and losses.
On one hand, Dombrowski’s 2018 Red Sox dominated the major leagues, ripping off 108 wins in the regular season and cruising to a World Series title with an 11-3 record. He was also the general manager of the Detroit Tigers from 2002 to 2015 and rostered a number of exceptional teams that never captured a championship.
Detroit won the American League pennant in 2006, made the World Series again in 2012 and claimed four straight American League Central crowns from 2011 to 2014 under Dombrowski. The Tigers had a number of great players on the team during that span such as Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and others. They just couldn’t manage to reach that final goal.
“The players go on and on, but we never won it all,” Dombrowski said. “And it just shows you, that’s why it’s so hard. A couple times I thought we had the better club that we didn’t quite get it done at the end, but what’s why winning even feels better based upon losing tough games like that.”
This Phillies, with three postseason appearances, an NL championship and now an NL East title, are in the midst of one of the greatest runs in franchise history. But it’s certainly possible — or even likely — that they don’t come away with a World Series parade during Bryce Harper’s prime.
It’s the nature of the game. The playoffs can be a crapshoot, and better teams lose to worse teams all the time. That worked in the Phillies’ favor during their surprise run in 2022, and it’s a reality they know as one of the best teams in baseball this year.
“Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is,” Dombrowski said. “You prepare, you do everything you possibly can. Our guys, I feel totally confident they’ll be as prepared as they possibly can be — fundamentally, pitching-wise, hitting-wise. But that’s how the game goes.”
The Phillies will work to stay ready throughout this week with a number of workouts. The players rested on Monday, hit the field Tuesday and will play an intrasquad game on Wednesday. The team will pump in crowd noise, play walk-up music and do what it can to bring up the intensity.
Philadelphia will have the advantage following this layoff against either the Mets or Brewers. The Phillies will need to execute and perhaps get a bit of luck, but they should be able to advance. But once the games start, sometimes anything goes.
Dombrowski knows that’s all part of the experience.
“As much as it makes my stomach twist a little bit at that time, that’s also the enjoyment of our game of baseball,” Dombrowski said. “That’s what makes it so fun for people, because you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
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