A 100-win baseball team still loses 62 games. A 100-loss team still wins 62. The lowly Oakland Athletics visiting Philadelphia and winning two of three games against the Phillies was unexpected, but not particularly out of the ordinary.
An eight-home-run performance by the A’s, however, is something else. Prior to Sunday’s 18-3 massacre, an opposing team had hit eight home runs against the Phillies just four times in franchise history. Two of those four occasions were in the nightmarish 2015 Phils season.
The Athletics franchise, meanwhile, had hit eight home runs in a game just once. Mark McGwire and the 1996 A’s accomplished the feat in an 18-2 thrashing of the Angels.
Catcher Garrett Stubbs was pitching for the Phillies by the end of Sunday’s game. He served up a grand slam to A’s second baseman Zack Gelof on a 53 mph slider. Athletics outfielder Lawrence Butler hit three home runs and first baseman Seth Brown hit two. Brent Rooker, a potential Phillies trade target, added two moonshots totaling 902 feet.
“It’s not the way you want to end [the last series before the All-Star break], but hey, we had a great first half,” said manager Rob Thomson. “You’re gonna have games like that. Still a really good first half.”
Thomson is right about the big picture, of course. The Phillies roll into the break with the best record in baseball and an 8.5 game division lead over the Atlanta Braves. The disappointing A’s series came right on the heels of a three-game sweep of the Dodgers. Fifteen consecutive home series without a series loss preceded this weekend’s debacle. And the Phils are on pace to win 106 regular season games.
But the weekend series itself? Ugly.
The A’s won Friday night’s game, 6-2. Starting pitcher Ranger Suarez had an off night and the Phillies mustered just one extra-base hit.
On Saturday, the Phils resembled the dominant team they’ve been all season, crushing four home runs in an 11-5 win. Tyler Phillips, a lifelong Phillies fan from Jersey, pitched well in his first major league start. He exited the game to a standing ovation.
“I know what a standing O means in Philly and I wasn’t expecting that,” said Phillips afterwards. “I threw the ball well. Result wise, it wasn’t perfect . . . But to have that many people stand behind me, it means something. I was choked up real bad.”
On the surface, the Phillies were in a prime position to finish off a 5-1 homestand on Sunday. But staff ace Zack Wheeler, originally lined up to start the game, is getting some extra rest around the All-Star break because of back spasms. With a few key relievers unavailable, the team used Orion Kerkering as an opener before turning things over to Michael Mercado.
Phillips replaced Mercado as the team’s fifth starter after the latter didn’t survive the second inning of a July start against the Braves. Mercado allowed three home runs to Atlanta in that one, and his appearance against the A’s was arguably even worse: 4 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 3 HR.
If you’re looking for a positive spin on the blowout, six of the eight A’s home runs were against pitchers that likely won’t sniff the mound in a postseason game: Mercado, Stubbs, and Jose Ruiz. (Seranthony Dominguez was the other victim.)
That’s cold comfort to any of the 43,000+ fans who suffered through this one at Citizens Bank Park. But it’s helpful for a Phils team that would like to flush this one and forget it.
The All-Star break comes at a fortuitous time for the Phillies. In addition to Wheeler, Suarez needs some extra rest. The team’s travel to and from the London Series ate up some off days that would have been useful in recent weeks. And J.T. Realmuto should return shortly after the break, putting all of the team’s stars in the lineup for the first time since Trea Turner’s May 3 hamstring injury.
“They’ve been grinding for a while now,” Thomson said after the game. “I think everybody needs the four days off.”
