Reflections as the 2026 Postseason begins: Why the Cubs could win the World Series

With a little more than a week to go in the season, they were comfortably in a wild card spot, having gotten there with multiple long winning streaks. Then… they just stopped scoring runs. They went on the road at the end of the season and could barely muster anything crossing the plate. The team's fans were beside themselves. What would happen to this club that at times seemed so dominant?

Nope, I'm talking about the 2022 Phillies , who with 12 games to go were 83-67 (psst… so were this year's Cubs after 150 games). Then those Phillies lost five in a row. That streak included coming into Wrigley Field and being swept by a bad Cubs team and scoring just three runs in that series. I vividly remember talking to a couple of Phillies fans at Wrigley after that series was over and, well, I can't post the language they used referring to their team.

Those Phillies then righted their ship, a little, winning four of five. Then they got shut out 10-0 by the Astros on the season's penultimate day (in fact, they nearly got no-hit by Justin Verlander and two Houston relievers, including old friend Hector Neris , finally breaking up that effort in the ninth). They lost the next day, too, backing into the postseason when the Brewers lost.