The Phillies paid Nick Castellanos $100 million. He needs to step up (again) with Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber out.

There’s no question that the Phillies can survive a moderately long absence of Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. They have the pitching, they have the defense, and they have the offensive depth.

That is, they have the offensive depth if $100 million right fielder Nick Castellano starts earning his money. After Thursday night’s injury-addled, bullpen-collapsing, badly defensed loss to the lowly Marlins, Castellanos was hitting .222 with a .622 OPS; the OPS ranks 185th among players who’ve played at least 50 games.

This is not an aberration.

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His average salary of $20 million ranks 40th among position players, but, among players who’ve played at least 200 games since 2022, Castellanos’ OPS of .727 (after Thursday) ranked 152nd. His 53 homers tie him for 59th.

Not a lot of bang for the buck.

It’s long past time to see this Big Game Nick show up with some big games, like another Nick did before him.

Don’t despair. Castellanos has carried this ball club before.

Briefly.

Thursday was a rough day for Phillies fans, spoiled to that point by a team that spent most of the season boasting one of the best records in baseball. This edition might have the best roster in the history of the franchise, but not only did the bullpen turn a 3-0 lead into a 7-4 loss, Schwarber strained his groin, Harper pulled a hamstring, and, suddenly, first place in the National League East didn’t seem as likely as it did 24 hours before.

Harper and Schwarber were placed on the 10-day injured list on Friday. They are over 30, and hamstrings and groins tend to be less resilient in their third decade. So do knees, as catcher J.T. Realmuto can attest; he’s still at least two weeks away from returning from his second surgery.

Furthermore, fifth starter Spencer Turnbull’s shoulder sent him to the sideline for a while, where he joins co-fifth starter Taijuan Walker, who has a finger boo-boo. So, yeah, in a season full of good play and good news, the Phillies got a lot of bad of both Thursday night.

In his 2½ seasons in Philadelphia, Castellanos has turned into the Phillies’ Ilya Bryzgalov, the free-agent goalie whose signing in 2011 spurred a decade of descent into irrelevance for the Flyers. Like Bryz, Casty was overpaid after modest success elsewhere. Like Bryz, he can be quirky, combative, and surly. And, most important, like Bryz, he hasn’t come close to earning the money he was given.

Casty isn’t beloved in Philly, but Bryz was so despised he got bought out, because a goalie can’t hide like a baseball player can — even when that baseball player was supposed to be the cleanup hitter and protection for Harper. Since he landed in Philly, Castellanos hasn’t protected anything except his hair products.

In his six seasons before 2022, when he signed with the Phillies, Castellanos hit .286 with an .853 OPS and had 142 home runs, or one every 5.44 games.

He’s hit .258 with a .727 OPS and had 53 home runs, or one in every 7.04 games — a home-run production drop-off of 23%.

He’s been even worse in the playoffs for the Phils, hitting .196 with a .632 OPS and five homers in 30 games.

And this has been his worst season.

He recently went 8-for-17 over four games, and moved his average to .225, but has since gone 3-for-22. He has 15 multi-hit games ... and 33 hitless games.

Sure, there are other hitters who need to show up better, too.

Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh likely will have a better chance to convince the club that they can be cornerstone contributors as well as defensive studs, because now, you’d imagine, they’re going to have to hit left-handed pitching.

Trea Turner just needs to keep it up at the plate, because he clearly remains limited in other areas, especially on the basepaths, where his hamstring, which cost him 38 games, clearly is not 100 percent. But then, he’s 30, too.

Edmundo Sosa, the team’s best defensive player, can further make the case with his bat that he should be an everyday player, if not here, then elsewhere. He’ll likely be slotted in at third base, replacing Alec Bohm, who will replace Harper at first. Bohm’s bat will earn him his his first All-Star start, but now he’ll have to prove that he can produce without the presence (and protection) of Schwarber, Harper, and Realmuto.

Bohm’s been part of the Castellanos Protection Service. In a town notorious for eating its own, Casty largely has gone unscathed. How?

First, the Phillies have been good enough for the regular season and successful enough in the postseason to soften the blows of his consistent underachievement.

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Second, Harper and Realmuto have been so good, Bohm and Stott have been such surprises, and Schwarber has been so oddly valuable — a home-run champion who bats .200 in the leadoff spot — that the high-profile, big-money free agent who arrived with Schwarber has mostly been allowed to skate.

Castellanos has ridden coattails better than Dan Quayle.

The Phillies have survived without their stars before. Last season, Rhys Hoskins blew out his knee in spring training, Harper didn’t play until May because he had elbow surgery, and Turner had $300 million worth of performance anxiety until August. They still went 15-15 in their first 30 games because of their pitching staff, the kids — Marsh, Stott, and Bohm — and Nicholas Alexander Castellanos.

He hit .319 with an .882 OPS.

So yeah, he can do it.

Will he?