How Nick Castellanos ‘locked in’ amid Phillies fans’ love and hate

PHILADELPHIA — Iconic performances in this city typically involve two things: a healthy dose of jeering from the fan base, followed by sweet redemption in the form of a meaningful win. Who doesn’t love a comeback story?

But there are layers to these things. What Nick Castellanos accomplished Sunday night against the Mets — crushing a game-tying home run in the sixth inning and a walk-off single in the ninth to seal a 7-6 Phillies win — cannot be properly understood from looking at his 3-for-5 in the box score. To understand Castellanos is to dig deeper than how he carries himself on the surface.

“He doesn’t let anything bother him, really,” manager Rob Thomson said of Castellanos. “If he’s struggling, it doesn’t really bother him, he just keeps working. He’s an experienced guy. He knows he’s going to come out of it at some point. He just keeps fighting.”

Halfway through Game 2 of the National League Division Series, the situation was getting desperate for the Phillies and their embattled right fielder. 

Castellanos opened his fourth-inning at-bat against Luis Severino having logged just two hits in his past 10 at-bats, dating back to the final days of the regular season. The Phillies dropped Game 1 to the Mets in part because the offense had struggled to hit. Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott and Castellanos combined to go 2-for-20 to kick off the 2024 playoffs. The Phillies had to win Sunday and split the series to avoid going into Citi Field with their backs against the wall. 

In the fourth inning, with the Phillies trailing 2-0, the home crowd was edgy and fed up — getting on its players early and often — by the time Castellanos dug into the box for his second at-bat of the night.

When he fell behind 0-2 against Severino by swinging hopelessly at consecutive balls in the dirt, anxious Philly fans expressed their displeasure by emphatically booing him. OK, par for the course. On the very next pitch, Castellanos refrained from swinging at a sweeper in the same extremely low and outside location. Then the fans cheered, sarcastically thanking Castellanos for listening. Huh, that’s different. Castellanos appeared to mutter a few words under his breath. Clearly, the noise had bothered him. One pitch later, he swung again at a low sweeper and grounded out.

“Nick’s a resilient person,” J.T. Realmuto said. “He’s dealt with a lot of ups and down here in Philly, and he always seems to come out on top in the end.”

The Mets added on in the top of the sixth inning after Pete Alonso homered off Jose Ruiz. Things were getting dire. The Phillie Phanatic didn’t even dare to show his face to the exasperated crowd. Finally, the nerves lifted when Harper took a 99 mph Severino fastball and swatted it to the batter’s eye for a two-run home run. Harper touched home plate, raised his arms and roared, imploring the crowd to get up and bring good energy. Up next, Castellanos responded by lifting a no-doubt game-tying home run to left-center. He was fired up, but he wasn’t even close to finished. 

“I was just kind of frustrated,” Castellanos admitted. “So, I guess I locked in more.”

In the eighth, he lined a single to right field off Edwin Diaz to set up the two-run triple from Stott that gave the Phillies their first lead. But these Mets don’t go down easily, so every Phillies run mattered by the time Mark Vientos tied the game with a two-run shot to left in the ninth inning. 

With two outs in the ninth, it was all set up for Castellanos to be the hero — or the villain — after Turner and Harper drew back-to-back walks. Castellanos collected his fifth walk-off of the year when he came through in the clutch again, lining the game-winning single to left and getting mobbed by his teammates on the field. See, we knew you could do it, the exuberant Philly crowd that was jumping and roaring, seemed to say. 

Afterward, his teammates echoed one another, asserting Castellanos is the same player, and carries the same emotions, in both the good times and the bad.

“Nick doesn’t get bothered by a lot,” Schwarber said. “I don’t know if he took it personally, but he came up big for us. You see the way that he plays the game, where results don’t really bother him. He stays in the game. He stays in the moment. He stays in that at-bat.”

But, that doesn’t really line up with what we saw from Castellanos when he muttered under his breath and later admitted he was frustrated. He was clearly miffed by the sarcastic cheers, so what did Schwarber, his teammates, and his manager mean by nothing really bothers him?

“You’re not looking at the physical outside of him, and you see him rattled,” Schwarber told FOX Sports. “I think that’s the biggest thing. Everyone has emotions and everyone has feelings. He does a good job of making sure that no one sees that. That’s the part about baseball, where you can be feeling great, you can be feeling bad, you can be banged up, and you don’t ever let anyone know. That’s the biggest thing.

“Nick didn’t let the pitcher know. He didn’t let anyone know. Keep that in, and it could be motivation, right? It could be. He kept it in, and like he said, it locked him in.”

This is a topic that has gotten under Castellanos’ skin before, though. 

In July 2022, his first season with the Phillies, Castellanos entered the second half with an 85 OPS+, to go with suboptimal defense in right field. The home crowd booed him as the struggles continued; one day after going 0-for-4 with a strikeout against the Cubs, a reporter asked Castellanos if he had heard the boos. Castellanos retorted, “Nah, man. I lost my hearing. That’s a stupid question.” The exchange got a little combative before the Phillies closed the clubhouse to the media.

The Phillies had signed Castellanos before that season, days after injecting Schwarber to the mix, in part because they wanted to try and slug their way to the postseason. They believed he would help carry that vision so much that Dave Dombrowski pushed a five-year, $100 million offer across the table that Castellanos accepted. He has since struggled in three regular seasons with Philadelphia, putting up an 105 OPS+ in that span. But he has come through in the playoffs, with clutch performances against the Braves and Padres in the 2022 NLDS and NLCS, respectively, on the way to the Phillies’ World Series run, as well as hitting five home runs over three games during last year’s postseason.

Those up and down moments with Castellanos are a significant reason Phillies fans have formed a love-hate connection with the slugger — and why his teammates who have been on this three-year journey with him vouch for his work ethic and fight along the way.

Game 2 was a microcosm of the Castellanos experience, which explains the outpouring of emotion — from the fans, the team and Castellanos himself. The sequence also demonstrated growth for the 32-year-old, as he adjusted his public response when pressed about the booing. In his latest interview about the Bronx cheers, Castellanos was short and to the point, lifting the curtain ever so slightly to reveal that his frustrations allowed him to have success later in the game.

Schwarber agreed that Castellanos’ ability to conceal his inner frustrations from the crowd, often even from his own teammates, could allow fans to get on him more, to continue piling on the boos and create that love-hate relationship. Sports fans want to see emotions and get reactions — both the triumphant and the defeated ones. But Castellanos seems to understand that he doesn’t need to break his bat over his knee and show his frustrations to prove something. He lets his production do the talking. 

The moment he didn’t hold back from letting his inner joy pour out came after his game-tying home run off Severino. He rounded the bases, and immediately jogged over to the seats behind home plate, where his son Liam was standing up and grabbing the netting that separated them. Castellanos smiled wide, the happiness lighting up his eyes, and reached through the netting to pound his son’s chest. 

“Let’s go!” they both screamed.

“All fans see is Nick Castellanos, or Kyle Schwarber, or Bryce Harper, or J.T., whoever it is, all they see is that player walking up to the plate. And it’s this idea of them,” Schwarber said. “But they’re human. It doesn’t matter if you’re hot or you’re cold, there’s always a thought in the back of the mind that he can do damage. So, I think that’s why, if you’re able to stay like that, unbothered on the outside, that’s a positive thing.”

Castellanos’ ability to slow the game down, stay outwardly unbothered in tough moments, and perhaps use it as motivation to eventually have success, and allow his overjoyed emotions to come out, is as much a part of his game as his iconic moments in Philly. In the past, Castellanos’ reaction to the crowd’s love-hate relationship, and even overcoming it, wouldn’t happen like the flip of a switch, the way it did in the Phillies’ walk-off win Sunday night. He made the in-game adjustment to use the booing as motivation, and this time, it worked. 

It’s the stuff of comebacks, and who doesn’t love that?

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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