PHILADELPHIA − It took 141 years for the Phillies to play in their first Game 7.

It won't go down as a fond memory after they lost for the second straight night at Citizens Bank Park, falling 4-2 to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night in the deciding game of the NLCS.

The Diamondbacks will move on to face the Texas Rangers in the World Series beginning Friday. The Phillies, meanwhile, will lament the chances they let get away.

And there were plenty.

The Phillies grabbed a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning on Bryson Stott's double that scored Alec Bohm. Then the bats went silent for a second straight night. By the late innings, so did a raucous crowd that desperately tried to cheer them on to the World Series for a second straight season.

Afterward, Kyle Schwarber described the feeling as "sickening." The Phillies lost in the World Series in six games last year. They envisioned getting back there this season.

"Anytime you lose, it doesn’t feel right," he said. "It felt just as sickening last year as it does this year. We were two wins away last year. This year, we were five wins away. It will never feel right."

Bryce Harper had a chance to duplicate his heroics from last season, when his three-run homer in the eighth inning of NLCS Game 5 against the San Diego Padres sent the Phillies to the World Series. He came up with two runners on in the seventh inning, the Phillies down by two.

He flied out to center field.

"He threw me the pitch I wanted," Harper said about Kevin Grinkel. "I went 2-1 (in the count), he threw me a heater, and I just (pause), man, just not being able to come through in that moment, just devastating for me, personally.

"I feel like I let my team down, and let the city of Philadelphia down as well. That’s a moment I feel like I maybe come through."

He wasn't the only one.

The Phillies kept flailing away after that, and Harper never got another chance. Bohm, Stott and J.T. Realmuto all struck out on pitches out of the strike zone in the eighth inning.

Bohm slammed his bat in frustration, breaking it.

It was that kind of night. The Phillies were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. By the late innings, the Phillies couldn't even get runners on base to strand.

It was up and down the lineup.

Nick Castellanos homered in his first at-bat. Then he went hitless in his final 23 at-bats, with 11 strikeouts. Trea Turner went hitless in his final 14 at-bats. Harper, one of the Game 5 heroes, went hitless in Games 6 and 7.

The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, took advantage of their chances. They took a 3-2 lead in the fifth inning on RBI singles by Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno, set up by a sacrifice bunt and a stolen base.

Then they tacked on another run in the seventh.

That brought a nervous energy over the soldout crowd.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Not after the Phillies had come back home to Citizens Bank Park after winning Game 5 in Arizona, needing just one more win in the final two games to advance to the World Series.

But they fell flat in Game 6 on Monday night, losing 5-1, getting just five hits.

And they did it again Tuesday, once again getting only five hits. So when pinch-hitter Jake Cave flied out to right-fielder Corbin Carroll, the Diamondbacks rushed the mound to celebrate, while the Phillies fans quietly rushed to the exits.

The tension began before the game when Phillies manager Rob Thomson announced that he wasn't about to tinker with a lineup that had his team one win away from the World Series.

So Thomson was emphatic when asked about the possibility of making some lineup changes for Game 7 of the NLCS despite several players slumping, including Bohm and Stott, the Nos. 4 and No. 5 hitters, respectively.

"Zero," Thomson said.

NO WIN FOR NOLA: Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies' imperfections finally appear at an inopportune time

As if on cue, Bohm got the Phillies on the board with a solo homer to lead off the second inning, tying the game at 1-1.

Then Stott gave the Phillies the lead in the fourth.

Harper started the inning with a scorching lineout to right on a ball that had an exit velocity of 106.3 mph. Bohm followed by walking on four pitches. Then Stott lined a double into the gap in left-center, giving the Phillies a 2-1 lead.

Stott moved to third on Realmuto's single, but was stranded there when Castellanos and Johan Rojas struck out.

"I had a terrible at-bat," Castellanos said. "Me wanting too much to get the runner in instead of just seeing what the pitcher was going to give me first. And that’s on me."

That proved costly when Emmanuel Rivera led off the fifth with a single and was sacrificed to second, bringing the top of the order up. Phillies starter Ranger Suarez stayed in the game and struck out the right-handed Ketel Marte for the third time.

But he didn't have the same luck with the left-handed hitting Carroll, who lined a single to center, scoring Rivera. Carroll then stole second and scored on Moreno's single, giving Arizona a 3-2 lead.

The Phillies couldn't get any closer.

Schwarber, Turner and Harper went 1-for-18 in the final two games of the series. And there wasn't much support from the bottom of the order either.

"That's the ebbs and flows of offense," Thomson said. "People aren't going to hit every single day of the season. It's just not going to happen. Other guys got to pick it up. Other guys got to get it done, and you have to pass the baton and move people up and get people on base and put pressure on people.

"We had some people on base tonight. We couldn't get the big hit."

Soon after, the anticipated Phillies World Series coronation never happened. The Diamondbacks were the ones celebrating on the Citizens Bank Park mound. The Phillies were left to wonder how it all went so wrong so quickly.

"The potential of this team is so much greater than going home before the World Series," Castellanos said. "Knowing how we feel about this team, we came up short from what we did the year previous. And it’s a disgusting feeling, obviously."

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: NLCS Game 7: How Phillies missed World Series in loss to Diamondbacks