When the Philadelphia Phillies were eliminated from the National League Championship Series last year, there was a sense of frustration as they let one slip when they needed just a single win at home to return to the World Series.

With their elimination against the New York Mets in the NLDS round this time, the feeling is one of disappointment.

The Phillies have been dominant early in the season, running roughshod over their opponents and boasting the best record in Major League Baseball entering the All-Star break.

But serious alarm bells went off in the second half of the year as they slowly came out of the gate, dropping series after series after series.

Despite the team insisting that they were simply in a rut and that nothing was overly wrong, it turned out that the foundation was broken and they never returned to their form from the first half of the season onwards, eliminating them from the play-offs by a wide margin . of reaching the World Series.

There is no other way to describe this campaign than that it is a failure.

Going into Spring Training, Philadelphia’s players and staff were talking about this being championship or bust, and although they won their first NL East title since 2011, the end result was anything but what was expected of them.

“It’s always (disappointing), especially when we got to the start we started with. Yeah, it’s disappointing,” manager Rob Thomson said at his post-match press conference. “What’s not disappointing is the character that’s in our room, the professionalism, the way they do business, their work ethic. That’s not just the players, but the coaching staff and the support staff. We rarely have a great group. We were defeated in a short series.”

Disappointing is really the only way to describe things at this point.

After the Phillies’ magical run to the World Series in 2022, they have taken a step back in the playoffs every year since, indicating there are some underlying issues.

Philadelphia was clearly ready to play early and got off to a fast start this season before falling out in the second half and into October.

Thomson was asked if he thinks his emphasis on that fast start played a role.

“Something to watch, for sure. But my feeling in the clubhouse with our players was that they never lost their edge. They may have gotten tired over the course of the year, but everyone does at some point. But what we I did in the middle of the year, or in the first third, we had some injuries and the guys got going. Then we really took off. But we fell off a little bit there. But I never categorize that like I don’t think those guys did that,” he replied.

There will be a lot to think about for every member of the organization after failing to win a single round in the playoffs.