Coming into Sunday afternoon’s matchup in Seattle, the Philadelphia Phillies had won just two of their last ten games, including a season-high six game losing streak. That slide saw the Phillies lose their spot as the team with the best record in baseball. Philadelphia also saw their lead in the National League East fall to just five games over the Atlanta Braves. The team felt almost in free-fall mode and needed a bounce-back game in a big way.
On the road, looking to avoid a second straight sweep, Kyle Schwarber came to the plate and started the game off on the right foot with a lead-off home run. From there, a pitchers’ duel between the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and the Mariners’ Logan Gilbert began. Gilbert would strike out the next four players for Philadelphia, while Zack Wheeler would go on to dominate the Mariners’ lineup. Outside of Schwarbers homer, the dueling aces would combine for five hits in the first six innings before Gilbert was replaced by the bullpen in the seventh.
After a strong seventh-inning performance by Seattle’s J. T. Chargois, Philadelphia seized the opportunities that came their way in the eighth and beyond.
Bryson Stott led off the eighth inning with another home run, and just three batters later, Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm would go back-to-back with two more home runs. With a commanding lead as Zack Wheeler took his much-deserved exit, manager Rob Thomson sent in reliever Jose Ruiz to finish off the game as the Phillies would go on to win by a final score of 6-0, salvaging the series for the team.
Philadelphia found their hitting stroke with four home runs in this game, one more than they managed in their previous five games. Philadelphia has lived and, more recently, died by the long ball all season. To see its return is certainly welcome, but they’ll still need to maintain consistency at the plate to re-solidify themselves as a true contender.
As much as the Phillies needed this performance, so too did Bryce Harper. This game marked the first in which Harper had registered multiple hits since July 13. The former MVP had hit for a pedestrian batting average of just .113, going seven for 62 in his previous 15 games.
Up next for the Phillies
Philadelphia will continue its Western Conference road trip with a pivotal series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, Aug. 5, before heading to Arizona for a matchup against the team that knocked the Phillies out of the postseason last year. This trip will continue to prove to be one of Philadelphia’s toughest of the season. They will need to operate on all cylinders to emerge from it once again as the top team in baseball.
