There was a time when Citizens Bank Park seemed to give the Phillies something close to a one-run lead before the first pitch was thrown.
Not literally. It only felt that way.
The noise came early. Two strikes in the third inning could sound like October. One baserunner could change the temperature of the building. Opposing pitchers knew what was coming, and so did the Phillies.
After the 2022 postseason, then-manager Rob Thomson relayed what an opposing National League coach had told him about playing in Philadelphia.
“It was four hours of hell.”
For several years, the numbers backed up the reputation.
The Phillies went 49-32 at Citizens Bank Park in 2023. They improved to 54-27 in 2024. Then came 2025, when they posted an MLB-best 55-26 home record. Over those three seasons, Philadelphia went a staggering 158-85 at the Bank — a .650 winning percentage.
Now?
The Phillies are 32-30 at home.
Two games over .500.
Even stranger, they have been better away from Philadelphia, going 34-28 on the road.
That raises a question that would have sounded ridiculous a couple of years ago:
What happened to the Phillies’ home-field advantage?
At last season’s .679 home winning percentage, the Phillies would project to be roughly 42-20 through 62 home games. Instead, they are 32-30 — about 10 home victories behind last year’s pace.
Even using their combined .650 winning percentage from 2023 through 2025, they would be expected to sit around 40-22.
That is not normal regression around the edges.
That is a completely different experience at Citizens Bank Park.
And perhaps the most fascinating part is that there are two possible explanations that seem to pull in opposite directions.
Maybe the Bank has lost some of its electricity.
Or maybe the electricity is still there, but for a veteran Phillies team carrying years of expectations and postseason disappointment, some of that energy now feels more like pressure.
Start with the fans.
They haven't disappeared.
Through 62 home dates, the Phillies have drawn 2,465,413 fans, an average of 39,764 per game. That still ranks fifth in Major League Baseball and represents roughly 93 percent of Citizens Bank Park's 42,901-seat capacity.
But there has been a decline.
Philadelphia averaged 38,157 fans in 2023 before jumping to 41,527 in 2024 and 41,672 last season. This year's 39,764 average represents a drop of roughly 1,900 fans per game from 2025, or about 4.6 percent. It is the first season since 2023 in which the Phillies are averaging fewer than 40,000.
And consider how automatic huge crowds had become. Through 71 home dates last season, the Phillies had already drawn more than 40,000 fans 60 times.
So, yes, there has been some softening.
But calling it fan disengagement goes too far.
Nearly 40,000 people are still showing up every night for a team that stumbled badly out of the gate and has spent much of the summer trying to stabilize its season. The Bank is hardly empty.
Perhaps the more important change is what those fans are expecting when they arrive.
The 2022 Phillies were a surprise. The 2023 Phillies still carried the electricity of a team seemingly capable of another October run. By 2024 and 2025, Citizens Bank Park had become a destination and winning there had become almost routine.
But expectations have hardened.
October disappointments accumulated. The same core grew older. The World Series-or-bust conversation became louder.
That changes the relationship between a team and its crowd.
A strikeout that once generated encouragement can produce a groan. A squandered scoring opportunity brings impatience. A two-run deficit doesn't always feel like the beginning of another comeback anymore.
The expectation has changed.
So has the reaction.
But here is where the pressure theory gets complicated.
The Phillies are actually hitting significantly better at home.
Through those 62 games at Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia has hit .251 with a .325 on-base percentage and .435 slugging percentage, good for a .760 OPS.
On the road?
Just .227/.295/.367, a .662 OPS.
They have scored 300 runs at home compared with 251 on the road and hit 87 home runs at Citizens Bank Park compared with 66 away from it.
If the crowd is suffocating the Phillies offensively, the statistics aren't showing it.
They are scoring nearly five runs per game at home. They are hitting for considerably more power. They are getting on base more frequently.
And yet they are winning less often.
That may be the most telling statistic in this entire discussion.
Citizens Bank Park still appears capable of amplifying the Phillies.
The Phillies simply are not converting that amplification into victories the way they once did.
Maybe that is because home-field advantage has always been misunderstood.
A crowd cannot manufacture the first big hit. It cannot throw a scoreless seventh inning or protect a one-run lead.
What a great home crowd can do is multiply momentum.
Schwarber hits a home run and suddenly the next hitter feels as if he is batting with 40,000 people standing behind him. A starter gets two strikes and the ballpark becomes uncomfortable for the hitter. An opponent makes a mistake and the place makes sure he thinks about it.
That was the formula during the height of the Phillies' run.
The players supplied the spark.
The Bank poured gasoline on it.
Lately, too many nights have followed the opposite script. A scoring opportunity disappears. A lead gets shaky. An opponent grabs momentum. Suddenly the same 40,000 people who once made the visiting dugout uncomfortable are waiting for the Phillies to prove that another disappointment isn't coming.
And there may be one more piece of evidence that the dynamic started changing before this season.
After beginning the 2023 postseason by winning their first six games at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies lost Games 6 and 7 of the NLCS there. They were eliminated at home again after struggling in the 2024 and 2025 Division Series.
Those memories accumulate, too.
Which is why the fairest conclusion isn't that Citizens Bank Park has suddenly become just another stadium.
It hasn't.
Nearly 40,000 people are still walking through the gates every night. The place can still shake. One Schwarber home run, one Harper moment, one dominant inning can still make the building feel like the version opponents once dreaded.
But something has unquestionably changed.
In 2025, the Phillies won 67.9 percent of their games at Citizens Bank Park.
In 2026, they are winning 51.6 percent.
The seats are still mostly full.
The offense is actually better at home.
The crowd is still waiting to erupt.
What seems to have disappeared is the assumption that something good is about to happen.
And maybe that is the real difference between Citizens Bank Park then and Citizens Bank Park now.
The Bank hasn't lost its voice.
The Phillies have lost their ability to weaponize it.
With the postseason race tightening and 19 home games remaining, rediscovering that ability could become one of the biggest factors in determining whether this season reaches October.
Because if the Phillies get there, they don't need Citizens Bank Park to simply be loud again.
They need it to become four hours of hell.
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