Suddenly, the Phillies are doing everything right. It appeared their eight-game winning streak was going to end Sunday against St. Louis. That is until the Phillies decided it wasn’t going to end. Six runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a Kyle Schwarber home run, gave the Phillies a 6-4 walk-off sweep of the Cardinals.
Down 4-0 there was no reason to believe that the offense was going to suddenly come to life. Even when Bryce Harper doubled to leadoff the ninth inning the excitement was muted by two flyballs to left field that were outs that left Harper still on second with two outs. J.T. Realmuto singled to put runners on the corners, but there were still those two outs that hung like a foreboding sign of doom.
Justin Crawford walked to load the bases and suddenly, it was interesting, but… On the bench, Schwarber joked to Trea Turner that Edmundo Sosa, who was next up, was going to hit a grand slam. That would have been fun, but it didn’t happen. Sosa did do damage though when he doubled to get the three teammates ahead of him off the bases and make it 4-3. Now, it was interesting.
Bryan De La Cruz then took a 2-2 pitch from Riley O’Brien and didn’t exactly hammer it – the exit velocity was 81.5 mph – but it found space and rolled into left field for a base hit that scored Sosa from second to tie the game. With De La Cruz on first, Schwarber came to the plate and looked to just keep the train rolling.
While De La Cruz had success with a low exit velocity on a 2-2 pitch, Schwarber put a few more miles-per-hour behind the 2-2 pitch he got from O’Brien and launched it 459-feet at a speed of 108.5 mph. All O’Brien could do was stand on the mound with his hands on his head and watch as the ball cleared the batters’ eye and landed on Ashburn Alley in center field.
O’Brien had just four blown saves in 37 opportunities coming into Sunday’s game and leads the National League with 33 saves.
Right place, right time
Alex McFarlane made just his sixth major league appearance on Sunday, but it resulted in his third MLB win. The rookie right-hander pitched a clean top of the ninth to give the offense a chance to wake up and mount the comeback. McFarlane got the win in two of the games against the Cardinals. The first came Friday night when the Phillies scored twice in the bottom of the 10th for a 7-6 win in the series opener. His first win came against Miami last Tuesday when he followed Zack Wheeler to the mound in the sixth inning and the Phillies scored four times in the bottom of the inning to take the lead.
In his six outings, McFarlane is 3-1 with a 1.69 ERA.
Good timing
The Phillies hot stretch has them 9-1 over their last 10 games. Meanwhile, their friends in Atlanta are 3-7 in their last 10 games. The Phillies have moved to just three games behind the Braves in the NL East. The Phillies and Braves have seven games remaining against each other this season; four in Atlanta and three in Philadelphia.
Second base injury updates
Luis Arraez left Saturday’s game due to leg cramps and was held out of Sunday’s game just as a precaution. Bryson Stott moved over to second base with Sosa playing third. In the bottom of the sixth, Stott fouled a ball off his foot, but stayed in the game only to exit later with Arraez coming in to play second.
The x-rays on Stott’s foot were negative and it is thought that he and Arraez will both be available Monday night in Seattle.
“I kind of expect him to be in there,” Mattingly said about Stott’s availability. “Honestly, a lot of the foot things, if it’s not a fracture, they bounce back decent. Not a lot of area to get swollen up in there. So I expect him to be able to play.”
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