NEW YORK – It wasn't supposed to end like this. Just three months ago, the proposal seemed like a punchline. Carlos Estévez, crouching in front of the Citi Field mound with a wince and an anxious look over his shoulder, watched Francisco Lindor's grand slam disappear over the right-center field wall in the sixth inning and realized that the tide was irrevocably over had turned around and that the Phillies' most promising season in years would soon be over after just four games.

A loss as catastrophic as this doesn't leave much room for detailed detail. It doesn't matter how it went, just that it went. If you watched Game 4, you know what happened. You know it was about the same as each of the Phillies' previous five postseason games. Their lineup failed to generate comfortable leads and their bullpen failed to maintain the few slim leads they had. More relevant is the question of why these two things continue to happen and how they might be resolved. That's a big question. It's an important question. But it is neither the biggest nor the most important unknown.

” READ MORE: Francisco Lindor and the Mets destroy the Phillies' World Series dreams and edge them out in the NLDS

No, the most important unknown after the Phillies' 4-1 loss to the Mets in Game 4 of the National League Division Series came into focus a few innings before the official end. When Lindor stepped onto second base to end the eighth inning, a sellout crowd of 44,000 of the hungriest fans in the sports universe erupted. The noise that flooded Citi Field quickly turned into the most rousing, carefree sing-along in Billy Joel history piano man, The chorus filled the field as the Phillies came back for their final three outs of defense in 2024.

Is this really happening? And more importantly, is there a risk of something like this continuing to happen? Was it simply a matter of a more talented team and a more successful organization finding themselves in the inevitable team-on-fire situation of the postseason? Will it go down as a hiccup, a speed bump, a disgrace in the balance sheet of an era that will ultimately produce the long-awaited title? Or will it go down as something else? The natural next step for a team that has already reached its peak and whose best chance for glory fades a little further down?

“It’s not a good feeling,” Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber said. “I feel like the group we had was going to get better and better. First, you must give credit where credit is due. They played phenomenally. There are no ifs or buts, they beat us. So kudos to them. But that doesn't take away from the mood in the room. It hurts.”

One can only hope that there is nothing symbolic about the fact that the Mets are the team that raised these questions. If you had tried to concoct a scenario in June and July that would cause maximum damage to the Phillies and their fan base, it would have looked something like this. Schwarber swings strike three against Edwin Díaz, a blue-and-orange mob forms around second base, a giant apple rises from its black-clad den in center field.

Three weeks before the Phillies acquired Estévez at the trade deadline in what they thought would strengthen their position as NL title favorites, the Mets were 15 games out of first place, two games under .500, and headed toward a path that looked like a good bet his seemed to end up as a futures salesman himself. Pete Alonso, La Candelita, OMG, everything seemed so dubious that it was almost fun. The Mets would never stop Metsing.

Now? We witnessed what may have been the breakthrough of a future star in October, with Mets third baseman Mark Vientos dominating that series in a way that none of the Phillies' $20 million-plus superstars could come close to replicating . We've seen Lindor not only back up those MVP chants, but also raise the possibility that he could be the type of player who can etch his name into postseason legend. We have to consider a remarkable possibility: that these Mets might actually have what it takes to win a World Series, in a year that should have been the Phillies' best chance yet.

“I know we can do it,” catcher JT Realmuto said. “Obviously we haven’t done that the last couple of years, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a really good ballclub.”

The immediate consequences of such a loss are not a time to make final judgments. It is still too early to say that things need to change. It is not too early to say that changes need to be considered. The trend line goes back further than Games 6 and 7 of last year's NLCS loss to the Diamondbacks. The Phillies are now 2-5 in their last seven postseason games after going 14-4 in the previous 18 games.

Dave Dombrowski and Rob Thomson need to think long and hard about building this lineup. Is this really the right mix of players around those who need to continue to serve as the core? The bottom half of the order was virtually non-existent long before this series began. Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas – what exactly do the Phillies have in these players? Which ones have earned a permanent place alongside the Bryce Harpers and Schwarbers and Trea Turners? How could they exchange those who didn't?

Of course, this assumes that Thomson himself is guaranteed to return for his third full season at the helm. That should be him. I'm pretty sure of that. They are not making this change at this time. In an offseason where a lot still needs to change, the Phillies need what Thomson brings from a human management perspective. The manager gave his critics plenty of options with how he handled both his pitching staff and his lineup in this series. On the other hand, you can't cope with a lineup that doesn't score.

The talent itself must be the focus. Schwarber and Harper are cornerstones of the consistency and sensitivity of their approach. The rest of the lineup is insanely vulnerable to uncompetitive at-bats, most of which happen simultaneously. That includes Turner, who went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in Game 4 and is now 8-for-40 with five walks and nine strikeouts since the start of last season's NLCS. During his first two years with the Phillies, he looked more like the hitter he was early in his career than the hitter, batting .317 with a .370 on-base percentage and a .900 OPS from 2019-21. Turner connected on a career-high 54% of the shots he faced this season, up nearly 10 percentage points from his peak.

“Personally, I think we’ll get out of this,” Turner said. “It doesn’t matter who’s on the mound. I know I personally feel that way, and I think many of the people in this room would feel that way too. The hitting is very hard. It's easy to sit in the dugout and say, “Don't swing at this pitch or do this or that.” We say it all the time, it's so easy from here in the dugout when someone else is hitting. But when you're in the box and there's a guy on the mound throwing 95 miles an hour and all sorts of things are happening, it's easy to say you should do this or that, but when you're in the box, you have to you have to make a decision about how you want to participate in the competition. I think we want to compete and we have a great lineup and great offensive players and honestly we are managing to hold our own.”

Turner, who signed a $300 million contract that runs through 2033, isn't going anywhere. Some of the most important decisions that need to be made include roster spots with more options. The top two: Bohm, who is two years removed from free agency and could potentially be traded for a player with a different skill set; and Marsh, whose bat is valuable as a midfielder but can be upgraded on the left side. The Phillies have some interesting directions they can take this offseason. But how willing are they to shake things up?

On Wednesday night, those were the questions floating around as OMG's bass line boomed through Citi Field, October's newest favorites lingered long after the finale, while the game's once-fancy novelties crept silently toward the visitors' clubhouse.