Entering the finale of a three-game series with the Seattle Mariners on Sunday, the Phillies were down bad.
They had lost six games in a row and 13 of 17. Superstar Bryce Harper was mired in a brutal slump, with just two hits and three walks in his last 41 plate appearances. Their pitching, the backbone of the team’s hot start, had allowed almost nine runs per game over their last five match-ups. On Saturday, the bullpen blew a 5-0 lead.
The team needed its ace to stop the bleeding. And that’s exactly what Zack Wheeler did, allowing just two hits and one walk over eight shutout innings. He struck out nine as the Phillies won, 6-0.
“That’s why he’s the ace, you know?” said manager Rob Thomson about Wheeler. “I always feel good when he’s going out there.”
Wheeler didn’t win the game alone, of course. Kyle Schwarber gave the Phillies a quick lead with his tenth leadoff home run of the season. And the Phils busted things open in the eighth, scoring five runs on homers from Harper, Alec Bohm, and Bryson Stott. Harper had three hits on the day after collecting three hits in his previous ten games.
“I know when I play better, our team is better,” said Harper afterwards. “Obviously, it’s not going well for a lot of us right now, but the quicker we can turn that page, the quicker we can keep going knowing we’re still the best team in baseball, knowing we’ve got a great record, knowing that we’ve got all the guys in here that we need.”
Despite the stellar performances from Wheeler and Harper, Sunday’s game may be remembered most for an incredible lucky catch by Brandon Marsh. With the Phillies still clinging to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh, Mariners infielder Jorge Polanco launched a fly ball to the warning track in right-center field. Marsh raced towards the ball but completely lost it in the sun.
By the time he found it, it was already in his glove.
“I was going to let it hit my face,” Marsh said afterwards. “The only chance I had to catch it was to palms-up it. Better lucky than good sometimes.”
The play was an incredible break for a team that hasn’t found much luck in recent weeks. Since finishing off a sweep of the Dodgers on July 11, the Phils have dropped six consecutive series.
“If I don’t catch that ball, that’s a double or triple,” said Marsh. “It’s a completely different game.”
But Marsh did catch that ball, a welcome gift from the baseball gods who were so cruel to the Phillies for so long. It’s unclear whether the play had an impact on the bats, but the big eighth inning didn’t feel like a coincidence.
The victory, coupled with a Braves loss, extended the Phils’ lead in the National League East to six games. They are still very well-situated to win the division, despite their recent struggles.
The path forward, however, doesn’t get any easier this coming week. The Phillies begin a three-game series against the Dodgers in Los Angeles on Monday, followed by a four-game set in Arizona against the reigning NL champs.
Wheeler feels like the Phils are ready to regroup.
“We’re a good team,” said the big righthander. “We’ve been losing a lot. Things haven’t been going our way. But when they do, you’re kind of like, alright, here we go again. We’re back to normal, and hopefully we start going back up.”
