Aug 28, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola heads to the dugout after an inning against the Atlanta Braves at Citizens Bank Park. (Grace Del Pizzo/On Pattison)
LOS ANGELES — With their backs against the wall down 2-0 against the Dodgers, the Phillies are hoping that looking good and feeling good will allow them to get the NLDS back to Citizens Bank Park for a win-or-go-home Game 5 Saturday.
Phillies Nation's Destiny Lugardo noticed during Tuesday's workout at Dodger Stadium that the team was wearing their throwback powder blue gear. When Rob Thomson came to the podium for his media session, he was also sporting the throwback maroon cap and an old-school hoody.
So Lugardo asked whether the Phillies will indeed be wearing the throwback powder blue uniforms for Game 3 on Wednesday.
"We are," Thomson confirmed. "We talked about it, I guess, probably 10 days ago. Some of the players came to me because they like playing in them. So we had to go through a bunch of hoops with Major League Baseball just to get it OK'd that we could wear those on the road. They want to wear them, so we got it done."
The Phillies will wear the powder blues on the road in LA. They didn’t even pack the road grays. Rob Thomson explained why to @destiny_lugardo.
(via @AntSanPhilly) pic.twitter.com/V0ZfqxYr6F
— On Pattison (@OnPattison) October 7, 2025
Those of you who follow our uniform tracker during the regular season know that the Phillies have worn their gray away uniforms for every road game since Game 5 of the 2023 NLDS in Arizona, the last time that they sported their now-shelved red alternate tops.
In 2024, the Phillies introduced their City Connect uniforms. Nike — MLB's uniform provider — limits teams to four jerseys, and a fifth is permitted if it's a City Connect. So when the Phillies finally got a City Connect, they had to axe a top, and chose the red ones. Since then, they've had four home uniforms, and just the grays on the road.
Phillies record by uniform this season
Red Pinstripes: 27-12
Creams: 12-10
Powder Blues: 6-1
City Connects: 10-3
Grays: 41-40
— Tim Kelly (@timkellysports.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 4:28 PM
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It would make sense for them to once again have a second option to wear on the road, particularly when the powder blue uniforms with maroon caps were originally a road look. From 1972-1988, the powder blues were the primary road threads for the Phillies.
What's interesting, though, is this doesn't seem like a one-off thing for Game 3. If the Phillies win Game 3, the powder blues will remain for Game 4.
"I don't think we brought the grays, so we gotta stick with them," Thomson joked.
Kyle Schwarber said this has been something that the players have talked about for a couple years, and they've even imagined doing a full roadtrip with them. That can be difficult, though, because there are some teams who wear powder blue at home, such as the Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays. Other teams like the Chicago Cubs have blue home tops that would clash with the powder blue.
In any event, Schwarber and the Phillies will finally get to wear the powder blues on the road Wednesday.
"We're excited about it," Schwarber said. "We like wearing these uniforms. It's not like it's a superstitious thing or anything like that. We just like the way they look, like the way they feel, and they were picked out before the series. So we're happy that we're wearing them, excited to change it up a little bit, get out of the grays and have a different road uniform.
After wearing them as occasional road throwbacks after they were no longer their primary road uniforms, the Phillies brought the powder blues back as their Thursday home uniform in 2018, and they've become popular with a whole new generation. Whether it was Bryce Harper's walk-off grand slam against the Cubs in August of 2019, or Schwarber's four-home run game this August of this season, plenty of great modern moments for the Phillies have come in their powder blues.
With that said, the Phillies only wore the powder blue uniforms seven times this season just because they didn't have that many home games on Thursday. They were 6-1 in those seven games.
"Yeah, it was kind of a weird year. I felt like in previous years that we wore them a lot more," Schwarber said. "We felt like we had some more Thursday games at home, and this year just didn't really line up that way. But we just always liked the way that they looked, the way that they felt. And like I said, happy that it's working out."
The last time the Phillies wore the powder blue uniforms on the road was July 20, 2019, in Pittsburgh.
As far as the playoffs? The last time the Phillies wore the powder blue uniforms on the road in a postseason game was on Oct. 12, 1983 at Memorial Stadium, when they lost 4-1 in Game 2 of the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles.
Whether this is the start of the powder blue uniforms being worn more regularly on the road again or just something for this postseason, it's a fun little storyline if you're a sicko like me.
