They don’t ask how you won, just if you won, baby! Know what I mean? The Phillies definitely do.
They struck out 18 times (18 times!). They almost wasted a gem from Aaron Nola. They almost wasted a brilliant relief performance by Nick Pivetta and the rest of the bullpen. And they almost lost in extra innings to a team that entered the night with only 13 wins in 47 home games this season.
But they didn’t.
Instead, the Phillies won for the fifth time in seven games. And for the fifth time since last Tuesday night, Bryce Harper or Rhys Hoskins produced the go-ahead or game-winning hit.
For most of Tuesday night (and early Wednesday morning), the Tigers played every bit like a team that came into the evening 35 games under .500. Problem is, so did the Phillies. But with the game slipping away in the bottom of the 14th, Brad Miller and J.T. Realmuto teamed up to make a play that finally woke the Phillies up.
Namely, Scott Kingery shook off an 0 for 6 start to his night by drilling a leadoff triple to begin the 15th inning before Hoskins knocked him in with a base-hit to right field. Up until those two swings, the Phillies had produced a full package of offensive highlights through the first 14 innings:
Just kidding. That was it.
But the offense got that fifteenth crack at Tigers pitching because of a second straight lights-out performance from a bullpen that came into the night with a 4.90 ERA. That group finished the night with a 4.79 ERA. Check out these numbers:
8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 9 K
That effort followed an another outstanding performance from Nola, who now has a 1.93 ERA in five starts this month.
Here are some random notes that I compiled throughout the game. Enjoy.
For instance, here is the pitch sequence from Realmuto’s first inning at-bat in which he struck out with runners at second and third with only one out:
What is this approach?
Typically, hitters are told to be aggressive early in ABs with runners in scoring position. Baseball 101 stuff. Specifically, Realmuto is hitting .429 with a 1.114 OPS on first pitches this season. In this case, we could debate the merit of offering at a pretty well-located first pitch changeup. After all, StatCast has Realmuto hitting only .211 against offspeed pitches this season.
But the second pitch is a different story.
Matthew Boyd throws a fastball over the outer-half of the plate that Realmuto, who is hitting .305 with a .510 slugging-percentage against fastballs this season, needs to offer at. He’s hitting .286 with an .847 OPS in 0-1 counts, which is still very productive. Instead, he takes a hittable pitch while still early in the count, spits on it, and finds himself down 0-2, a count in which entered tonight hitting only .128 with a .279 OPS. Why wait? Go get that thing!
Boyd uses a pretty wicked high-low combo – an 80 mph slider in the dirt after going upstairs with a 94 mph fastball – so credit to him for good sequencing and execution, but this was a questionable approach that left Realmuto in a bind. I don’t know if this is a John Mallee thing, or a player thing, or what. What I do know is that the Phillies’ lineup has underperformed this season and that this type of at-bat felt all too familiar.