The Phillies needed to get back home after a 10-game rollercoaster of a road trip, and they needed to come back to the Citizens Bank Park crowd with a performance like this week’s.
The bats hit all over the field and into the seats; the starting pitchers, in the face of losing Zack Wheeler indefinitely as their ace at the top, held strong; and though the bullpen still proved shaky overall, so long as they can get to the ninth, their newest closer can and will shut it down.
The Phillies swept the visiting – and contending – Seattle Mariners in a three-game series and the first leg of a six-game homestand for the club in South Philadelphia, capping the set off with an 11-2 win on Wednesday backed by 12 strikeouts and six excellent innings from Jesús Luzardo.
The Phillies are 74-53, and continue to maintain their lead over the Mets for first in the NL East, which now stands at a 6.0-game buffer with the Nationals on deck and then a potentially pivotal trip up to Queens coming up.
Their work against Seattle was a good start to lead them into it. They needed that.
They needed Ranger Suárez to bounce back. The left-hander was falling back into what looked to be becoming habitual second-half struggles, but with the makeup of the Phillies’ starting rotation suddenly shifting, he rounded back into dominance on Monday night.
Suárez mowed through the Mariners’ order for 6.2 innings, collecting 10 strikeouts and holding them scoreless until, after 102 pitches, a solo homer from Mitch Garver and a hit by pitch to Dominic Canzone that immediately followed put a blemish on the effort and gave manager Rob Thomson the cue to hand the ball off to the bullpen. (What they didn’t need, though, was Jordan Romano, with a six-run lead, nearly sending it all off the rails in an instant. It’s only getting harder to trust him with any situation anymore.)
They needed Cristopher Sánchez to continue endlessly rising to the occasion, too.
The de facto No. 1 in the Phillies’ rotation now, Sánchez took his turn on the mound on Tuesday night with his changeup as lethal as ever, leaving Seattle’s lineup flailing as he went on to match a career-best 12 strikeouts. When he was pulled in the seventh after allowing a walk, but not before he registered that last strikeout with a 4-1 lead, the left-hander handed the ball to Thomson and walked back to the dugout with the crowd of more than 44,000 not just standing for him, but roaring. (It just happened to be Orion Kerkering’s turn to run into trouble in relief right after, but the Phillies found a way to survive it.)
Then they really needed that offensive onslaught.
By the second inning on Tuesday night, every batter in the lineup had a hit. Bryce Harper went on to crush two homers way into right field, J.T. Realmuto went solo to left for his trip around the bases, and Trea Turner, before either of those, launched a three-run shot over the fence for his first home run at home all season – and what was, then officially wasn’t his 1,500th career hit.
“To be honest with you, I don’t think that’s ever happened to me where I haven’t hit a homer at home for however many games,” Turner said from the clubhouse afterward. “Fifty games sounds like a lot, but we’re 120 games in or whatever it is, that’s pretty crazy that I’ve hit as many as I have on the road and zero at home. It was kind of becoming a joke or just giving up on it because it’s really weird.”
But it was hard to even realize it had been that long before it, finally, happened.
Turner went 4-for-6 leading off on Monday night with two runs scored and five runs driven in. On Tuesday, Turner singled, stole a base, and then scored to spot the Phillies a 3-1 lead. Then on Wednesday, he sailed a pitch to the right-center wall from the jump and flew around the bases for a lead-off triple that went on to tie the game early, 1-1.
In his last nine games entering Wednesday’s series finale, Turner was slashing .450/.476/.600 with a nine-game hit streak that he quickly stretched into 10.
The rest of the lineup has been following his lead.
“I think for him, and I think he understood, that for us to win, he’s gotta score runs and he’s gotta be on base, utilize the speed,” Thomson said postgame on Tuesday night. “The home runs, they’re gonna come…He’s so important to our offense.”
As are Harper, Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, and of late, Bryson Stott.
Harper singled to begin the eighth on Tuesday night, then Realmuto homered again for the go-ahead.
Schwarber tee’d up on his 44th homer of the season earlier in the first, and reached a new career-high 105 RBIs quickly into Wednesday with a sac fly that scored Turner from third, and all as the “M-V-P” chants grow louder. He still has more than a month to keep building his case, and did so with one more homer to pile on late into Wednesday.
Then Stott, settling in at the ninth spot in the order, doubled and went 2-for-5 on Monday; drew a walk, stole a base, scored, and homered on Tuesday; and doubled to the right-field wall to give the Phillies a 2-1 lead in the second on Wednesday that they never looked back from.
“I like him right where he’s at,” Thomson said pregame Wednesday of having Stott that far down the lineup. “He’s playing great.”
And the Phillies need that from him.
They needed everything they got at the Bank this week, and more of it as the regular season pushes into its final month.
Finally, they needed Jhoan Duran, for the save on Tuesday night and just in general.
Because for as unstable as the Phillies’ bullpen can still be, one thing is absolute about it now: If the Phils get to the ninth with the lead, you’re seeing spiders on the screen and triple-digits on the radar gun.
Then it’s game over.
Managing the outfield
Nick Castellanos sat for Wednesday’s series finale against the Mariners. He sat on Saturday in Washington, too.
Before the trade deadline, he was an assumed everyday player, but since Harrison Bader came in from Minnesota, the Phillies have been trying to manage a four-man outfield rotation between Bader, Castellanos, Max Kepler, and a Brandon Marsh on a considerable hot streak of late.
In his office ahead of Wednesday’s game, Thomson indicated to reporters that the Phillies will likely continue to operate on that outfield rotation. Well, for now, at least.
“I mean, if three guys get really hot and one guy’s not…yeah,” Thomson said, not wholly committing to the idea.
But for now, Marsh started in left on Wednesday, Bader in center, and Kepler in right.
Marsh went 1-for-4 with a walk and a run scored at the plate, Bader 2-for-3 with two runs scored, and Kepler 2-for-4 with a solo home run in the fourth that put the Phillies ahead, 3-1.
Bader and Kepler have both had their struggles with consistency. So has Castellanos, although he did go 2-for-5 in back-to-back games Sunday in Washington and then Monday at home against Seattle before going 0-for-4 on Tuesday night.
There’s a balance to be struck now between getting all four outfielders enough rest and at-bats, Thomson explained. The manager also noted that Castellanos’ knee injury, which he suffered up at Yankee Stadium in late July, was another point to be mindful of as he navigates who plays and when.
Granted, Thomson acknowledged, too, that Castellanos would disregard that as someone who prides themselves on playing every day.
But…
“He’s a good teammate, and he knows that those other guys are good players, too,” Thomson said of Castellanos.
“I think they’re all everyday players to tell you the truth,” Thomson added. It’s just you gotta keep them all rested and sharp at the same time if you can.”
Welcome back
José Alvarado was reinstated from his 80-game PED suspension on Tuesday and was finally back on the mound on Wednesday.
Called on for the eighth inning, and with a comfortable 8-2 lead to work with, the Citizens Bank Park crowd welcomed Alvarado back with cheers upon PA announcer Dan Baker’s call that he was entering the game.
Then the flamethrowing left-hander made quick work of the Mariners: A 1-2-3 inning, with a strikeout of star slugger Cal Raleigh to send them toward the ninth.
He didn’t miss a beat.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
