Typically, the baseball gods don’t like it when a team refuses to accept the gifts bestowed upon it early on in games, but the gods were forgiving on this day, giving the Phillies a much-needed break.

As a result of the reprieve, the Phillies completed an important three-game sweep of the New York Mets on Sunday afternoon.

In what for awhile looked and felt like one of those days – the type of day we have seen often from this team through three-plus weeks –  rookie Alec Bohm altered a familiar script by delivering a game-tying opposite field double in the sixth.

Bohm’s key hit set the stage for a feel-good breakout moment by Andrew McCutchen.

McCutchen, who for the third time in four games did not start in left field, entered in the top of the fifth inning, replacing Jay Bruce, who left the game after feeling discomfort in his left quad.

At least in the short-term, the switch turned out to be a fortuitous development. After waiting well over a calendar year for this moment, the man knew it as soon as he hit it:

McCutchen, who entered the day hitting just .180 with a .455 OPS, provided what would prove to be the eventual game-winning runs with the 391-foot blast.

It was a huge hit for McCutchen, who had just one extra-base hit in his first 50 at-bats this season. He now has two – and some relief.

Actually, it had been 443 days since his last home run.

An inning later, the Mets would go full-Met when J.T. Realmuto came up with two men on and one out.

Realmuto bounced a weak grounder to third that should’ve been the second out of the inning. Instead, third baseman J.D. Davis double-clutched his throw, allowing Realmuto to beat it out for an infield single. Compounding the mistake was that Domonic Smith also inexplicably dropped the throw, allowing pinch-runner Neil Walker, who replaced Jean Segura (hamstring) to score and Harper to move to third.

Harper would then score a batter later on an RBI single by Didi Gregorius, giving the Phillies the second of two valuable insurance runs.

From there, and maybe I’m burying the lede, the Philadelphia bullpen tossed two scoreless innings to nail down the 6-2 win. It was only the third time in 17 games this season that the bullpen did not yield at least one run.

Zack Wheeler Takes It to His Former Team

Zack Wheeler isn’t an overly-emotional guy, but you know this win had to be pretty sweet.

Despite not having swing-and-miss stuff, Wheeler mostly silenced his former team through seven impressive innings.

“You’re facing you’re old team, you want to go out there and do well, there’s no way around it,” he said. “It’s nothing personal against those guys, but I enjoyed my time there, made a lot good friends. Like I said, it was just fun competing against them.”

The only bump in the road in what was an otherwise borderline dominant performance came in the fourth inning.

The Mets loaded the bases with two outs for Luis Guillorme. Wheeler quickly got ahead 0-2, but he couldn’t put him away as Guillorme poked a two-run single the other way to briefly put New York in front.

The base-hit continued a trend of Wheeler’s struggles so far in generating swings misses with his hard stuff. Despite averaging 96-97 mph on his sinker and fastball, Mets hitters missed it on just 3 of 42 swings (7.1%), according to Statcast. In total, the Mets swung and missed on just five of 49 total swings (10%).

Wheeler was quickly up to 70 pitches through four innings, in part, because he had difficulty finishing off at-bats early on. After a seven-pitch battle with Michael Conforto that featured several foul balls, Wheeler finally turned to a wicked 80 mph curveball to finish the third:

Wheeler, however, would shake the inefficient start and bear down with an ultra-efficient 1-2-3, seven-pitch fifth inning. It gave him a chance to extend his afternoon and hang around long enough to earn his third win of the season. Perhaps of greater importance, it also gave the Phillies a chance to minimize the bullpen’s impact.

In fact, after surrendering the pair of runs in the fourth, Wheeler retired 9 of the final 10 batters he faced, needing just 29 pitches to navigate the final three frames. His manager continues to be impressed.

“I thought he was great. This is a tough lineup to get through, and you get through the top of that order and they make you work so hard,” Girardi said. “Those first three hitters make you work so hard to get through them, and you always worry about pitch counts, but again, as the game went on he got sharper, he got more efficient. I think he felt better with his stuff.”

The Phillies have won three of Wheeler’s first four starts. He has compiled a 2.81 ERA over his 25.2 IP. Still, his strikeout numbers are interesting. While Wheeler has never been known as a big strikeout guy, he averaged 9 K/9 a season ago. That number has dropped to 4.2 K/9 through his four starts of 2020, but Girardi doesn’t necessarily view that as a bad thing.

“I mean, we’ve talked to our pitchers that we want to get them deep in games, and the way you do that when you have good stuff is you don’t try to strike everyone out, you don’t try to nibble,” he said. “And Zack has good enough stuff that he can do that.”

Wheeler also talked about the evolution of his game and the added emphasis on lasting longer into his starts:

That’s always kind of been my thing is to get ahead, stay head and just get quick outs, so you can go deep into games. When I first came up in the big leagues, all the older guys were telling me you want to go seven innings or more, so that kind of always stuck with me, and that was always my goal. I didn’t have the best command early on in my career, so I had a lot of five or six inning games with 100 pitches. I always go back to when I got hurt for those two years, I watched a lot of baseball, and I just watched the best pitchers in the game and how they competed and how they went about gamelans and at-bats, that type of stuff. And they were always getting ahead, and just getting quick outs, and that’s how those aces always go deep in the games, help their team out, help their bullpen out, and that’s basically what I wanted to do.

He’s certainly doing that right now.

Tempting the Baseball Gods

Looking to complete the three-game sweep of the Mets, the top of the Phillies order came out firing against New York starter Rick Porcello with three consecutive hits to open the game. After a Jean Segura leadoff triple, Rhys Hoskins and Bryce Harper followed with a pair of singles to quickly build a 1-0 lead.

Hoskins produced just a single RBI over his first 65 plate appearances of the season. With his first-inning hit, he knocked in his fourth run in a span of three plate appearances.

Still, what appeared to have the potential of an early-inning knockout blow instead turned into a frustrating “what if” as the Phillies failed to do further damage.

J.T. Realmuto, Didi Gregorius, and Alec Bohm were retired in order to squash the threat. That first-inning frustration sparked an early-inning trend of missed opportunities as the Phillies had seven hits through four innings but only one run to show for it.

Those sins, however, were pardoned.

Roman Quinn’s Absence

The last we saw of outfielder Roman Quinn was on Friday night. He came around to score thanks to an outstanding slide on Bryce Harper’s walk-off single:

Quinn, who is hitting .278 with a .797 OPS, was placed on the IL Sunday morning, according to the team. Kyle Garlick was recalled to take his place on the active roster.

Before you make the “this guy is made of glass” knock, he’s not sidelined due to injury.

Quinn woke up Sunday with an ear ache and a sore throat. Proactively, he reported his symptoms to the team as a precautionary measure. Quinn is eligible to return once he passes MLB testing protocols.

So, the Phillies went from making hard decisions between Adam Haseley and Quinn in centerfield to moving their everyday second baseman to center in a span of four days. That escalated quickly. Hopefully, Quinn will be back at some point this week.

Harper Stays Hot

Bryce Harper entered Sunday’s game hitting .346 with a 1.150 OPS this season. After another multi-hit game Sunday, his sixth in 17 games this season, Harper is now hitting .364 with a 1.166 OPS. If you’re wondering, that’s good for baseball’s second-best OPS.

Seems decent.

Scott Kingery Ends a Streak

Scott Kingery had two hits on Sunday afternoon, raising his average from .093 at the start of the day to .128 by the end of it. It was Kingery’s first multi-hit game since Sept. 22nd of last season, ending a 17-game streak.

A September Return for David Robertson?

Phillies reliever David Robertson continues make his way back following Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL in his pitching elbow last August.

In recent days, Joe Girardi has expressed optimism that his team could get Robertson back at some point this season.

A pool reporter caught up with Robertson on Sunday, and the 35-year-old reliever provided further reason for optimism.

“I think I’m making a lot of progress, that’s for sure. It’s been a very difficult rehab process going through the pandemic, that’s for sure,” Robertson said. “I just lost some time in the middle of my rehab. It kind of stung me for a little while, but I’m catching up and I’m feeling really good.”

His rehab was disrupted for nearly a month back in June when a COVID-19 outbreak hit the Phillies’ Clearwater training complex. Robertson, who tested negative, was supposed to throw off the mound the same day the complex was forced to shut down. He then went to Alabama (where he owns a farm) to continue his rehab process.

As for when we might see Robertson return to the Phillies, he’s not yet ready to provide a definitive timetable. However, he feels that a September return is in play.

“I hate to put a timeline on it because the last time I put a timeline on it I feel like I just rushed myself and cost myself to have a mini-setback mentally,” he said. “I’m thinking, at best, maybe three weeks. But that’s not a hard date. I think if I could get comfortable I could pitch at the big league level in three weeks.”