PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies Thursday walked into the kind of series you’d sign for when the trucks started rolling toward Clearwater six months earlier.
Four games. At home. Off of wins in nine of the last 14. With a five-game lead over your closest rival and a chance to all but end the chase for the National League East head-to-head with the Atlanta Braves before Sept. 1. With four starting pitchers that have been All-Stars in this league lined up to toe the rubber.
It was all there for the Phillies starting Thursday night. For five innings, they did nothing to seize the chance, until, in typical fashion for this rivalry, things changed on a dime.
A three-run, opposite-field home run by Brandon Marsh in the sixth inning and a two-run bomb to center Nick Castellanos in the seventh turned a four-run deficit into a 5-4 win and another meaningful chapter in recent Braves-Phillies lore.
“Down 4-0 in this type of series, and the guys kept going,” manager Rob Thomson said. “I thought the at-bats were pretty good all night. We got Morton’s pitch count up pretty good. I don’t think we chased all that much – six walks, eight strikeouts – they just kept battling.”
Even before October, things are different when it’s the Phillies and Braves. They’ve met each of the last two postseasons. They seem destined to make it seven straight division titles, the Braves taking home the last six, and two pennants between them.
The stakes were high in Atlanta last weekend, the home team taking two of three in winnowing a division deficit that not too long ago was in double figures. At five games at first pitch, Atlanta would’ve dreamt of turning for the season’s final month within striking distance.
“There’s a lot on the line for both teams,” Thomson said. “Whether it’s August, September, October, April, there’s a lot of intensity in these games with Atlanta, because they’re a good club and a good rivalry, one of the better rivalries in baseball right now. It’s going to be a fun weekend.”
More than the Atlanta mano-a-mano was what this could prove for the Phillies. When they went to Atlanta, it was under scattered reports of the South Philly sky falling, off a rout trip to the West Coast. Thirteen straight games against playoff teams would be a litmus test. When they lost three of the first four, the test had been determined to have come back definitely negative.
But two straight bludgeonings of Kansas City and then two wins over Houston in the 2022 World Series rematch – Wednesday’s nearly no-hitter notwithstanding – put the Phillies at 5-4 with four at home. And with Cristopher Sanchez, Ranger Suarez, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola lined up to attack a Braves team that has started 73-60 despite halving half an All-Star lineup on the injured list.
Now one more win in the next three guarantees the Braves start September no nearer than five games in the rearview mirror, and that the Phillies post a winning mark against playoff teams against whom they need only win four of seven once October begins.
Sanchez held up his end of the bargain capably Thursday. The run he allowed in the top of the second started with a broken-bat bleeder down the third base line with two out and none on. His day ended with home runs 24 and 25 of the season to Matt Olson covering a combined 877 feet.
It was the 55th time in the last decade that the Braves have taken a lead of four or more runs on the Phillies. It’s the first one that the Phillies have won.
Sanchez gave his team that chance as the Phils ground down Charlie Morton. They had the leadoff man on in four of the first five innings without scoring.
“It didn’t feel like yesterday,” Castellanos said. “Yesterday I felt like we were getting dominated a little bit. Today, I felt like we were fighting the whole time.”
Castellanos’ single to lead off the sixth would change things, when J.T. Realmuto followed with a one-out single and Marsh stepped in.
Marsh didn’t reminisce about Game 4 of the 2022 NLDS, his tone-setting home run off Morton helping the Phillies finish off their first playoff series win in a decade. The homer meant enough in the present not to need that.
“He was getting 0-1 on me really quick with that breaking ball, so trying to not get down in the count again to him with his plus-plus stuff,” Marsh said. “I just took my chance on it, saw it up and out and just let it fly.”
The standard for excellence around Citizens Bank Park has shifted in the last two years. No longer is it about accolades you can send up flagpoles in center, instead only those inspiring parades down Broad Street. This Atlanta series can help them achieve the first while taking positive momentum toward the latter.
Thursday is one game, everyone canvassed in the clubhouse made pains to point out. But it’s also not just your average Thursday evening.
“I’m not going to say it’s a bigger series than anything else, but it’s the Atlanta Braves here at the Bank,” Marsh said. “So getting closer to the end of the season, we’ve got to take as many as we can against these guys. So tonight was a huge, huge game for us.”
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com
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