Bryce Harper hits grand slam, Phillies win again

The Phillies beat the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park, 10-1. Cristopher Sanchez pitched seven strong innings, Spencer Turnbull handled the final six outs, Kody Clemens smashed a triple and a home run, and Bryce Harper turned the game into a laugher with a fourth-inning grand slam.

Before we get to the details of the game, it’s my happy duty to update these numbers:

• The Phillies are 26-11. That’s a .703 win percentage, or a 114-win season pace.
• In franchise history, only the 1976 Phils (27-10) and the 1993 Phils (27-10) got off to a hotter start through the first 37 games of a season.
• The Phillies have won seven straight and are 18-3 in their last 21 games. The 1977 Phillies are the only team in franchise history to put up a better win total over any 21-game span (19-2).
• The Atlanta Braves trail the Phillies by three games in the National League East. The Phils haven’t led the division by four games since 2011.
• The last-place Miami Marlins are already 16.5 games behind the Fightins.
• The Phillies lead Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers superteam by 1.5 games for the best overall record in baseball.
• Citizens Bank Park, already a house of horrors for opponents in the postseason, is becoming the same in the regular season. The Phils are on an 11-game home winning streak, tied for their fifth-longest since at least 1901.
• Attendance is through the roof. The 39,492 paying customers for this Tuesday night game in May represented at least 5,000 more spectators than 80 of the 2015 Phillies’ 81 home games. (Even that miserable group sold out the park on Opening Day.)

Stay with me, friends. There’s more. Take a short break, hydrate.

You good? Let’s continue.

• As a staff, Phillies pitchers have the best ERA in the National League (3.21).
• Phillies pitchers have struck out the most batters in baseball (351).
• Only three NL teams have allowed fewer hits, only two NL teams have walked fewer batters, and only two NL teams have allowed fewer home runs than your Philadelphia baseball club.
• Phillies starting pitchers have pitched the most innings in the majors and have a 2.52 ERA (second-best in MLB).
• Phillies starting pitchers have the best WHIP in the majors at 1.01. Opposing batters are hitting just .200 against the rotation, which is also the best number in baseball.

I’m so sorry, but we still need to discuss the offense’s stats. Walk around a bit, stay loose and sexy, come back when you’re ready.

• As a team, the Phillies have the second-best OPS in baseball. They’re top-three in baseball in both on-base percentage (.335) and slugging percentage (.421).
• If you prefer your stats a bit more old-school, the Phillies are top-three among all MLB teams in batting average (.258), home runs (46), and runs scored (188).
• The Phils are even in MLB’s top-five for stolen bases (42).

Oh, and they’re playing their best defense in years.

Now… Tuesday’s game…

Blue Jays starter Jose Berrios entered the game with a 1.44 ERA, the best in all of baseball among qualified pitchers. He had allowed seven runs total through his first seven starts. But the Fightins tagged him for seven hits and eight runs.

“We had good at-bats all night,” said Rob Thomson after the game. “We put 90 pitches on one of the best pitchers in baseball in just 3.2 innings.”

The biggest of those “good at-bats” was Harper’s slam. But prior to that, the Phils had already built a 4-0 lead. Nick Castellanos drove in a first-inning run with a double, and Kody Clemens hit both a two-run home run in the second and an RBI triple in the fourth.

“It’s really awesome, I’m so happy for him,” said Thomson when asked about Clemens’ performance. The 27-year-old has four hits, two HR, and seven RBI in just nine ABs.

Harper gave Clemens some bats–including the one Clemens used for Tuesday’s dinger–when the younger player joined the major league squad, and was effusive in his praise of Clemens after the game: “He’s a stud. Any time he gets up here, he’s just another ballplayer coming up and playing the game. He has great at-bats, professional at-bats. For him to be able to come up, go down, come up again, and do what he does . . . I mean, he had a great spring, right? Could have probably made any team out of camp and just got the short end of the stick. And then comes up and does what he does . . . It’s just impressive.”

Clemens wasn’t the only player who impressed on Tuesday. Cristopher Sanchez was both nasty and efficient in his start, forcing Thomson to scrap a pregame plan to “piggyback” Sanchez and Spencer Turnbull for 4-5 innings each.

“Sanchy was phenomenal,” said Thomson. “Going into the game, we were kind of thinking, like, five [innings] and then go to Bull. But [Sanchez] was just so efficient and so good. We just kept extending him.” Sanchez’s line: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 89 pitches (59 strikes).

Turnbull looked sharp in his two scoreless innings as well, showing no signs of rust after six days of rest. “Fastball ticked up, slider was good, threw strikes for the most part,” Thomson said of the RHP with a 1.57 ERA and a 0.82 WHIP.

The plan for Turnbull moving forward is a little murky. Because he pitched just two innings on Tuesday, Thomson indicated that the starter-turned-reliever could be utilized out of the bullpen again after a couple days. If that happens, however, Turnbull may not be able to piggyback Sanchez’s next start.

But hey, if that’s the biggest thing the Phils have to worry about? That sort of feels like the they don’t have any worries at all.

The Phillies’ quest to make early-season history resumes on Wednesday afternoon at 1:05 p.m. Aaron Nola (4-1, 3.32 ERA) will get the start against Jays RHP Chris Bassitt (2-5, 5.45 ERA).

The PHLY Phillies show will be live postgame on Wednesday with Jamie, Renee, and Tyler. And for Friday’s game, there’s a PHLY watch party at Manayunk Brewing Co. It’s totally free and there will be a ticket giveaway, so why not check it out? Just register in advance online.

While I’m in sales mode, check out some fresh Phillies merch here, follow me on twitter here, and follow the PHLY Phillies twitter account here, And maybe a 26-11 Phils start is enough to make you pull the trigger on a Diehard membership to get access to the legendary Jim Salisbury’s work (among other benefits)?

It’s going to be a great Phillies season, let’s go all-in.