Friday night was a strange night for the Phillies.

They couldn’t touch Austin Gomber for six innings. Meanwhile, the Colorado Rockies were having a devil of a time scoring against Taijuan Walker.

In fact, the first 5 1/2 innings took less than an hour, and frankly, it had very little to do with the pitch clock.

Gomber threw just 56 pitches through six innings, maxing out at 12 in an inning twice. In those six innings, the Phillies had one hit, a double by J.T. Realmuto, who was promptly thrown out, and injured, trying to stretch it into a triple (more on that later).

Meanwhile, Walker threw just 50 pitches through five innings, and although the Rockies scattered a few hits, he was never in trouble.

It was just that both lineups were ridiculously over-aggressive, chasing pitches and making soft contact. It seemed as if were were headed for a speed record for fastest game of the season – and both teams were hellbent on getting there.

Then, suddenly, everything changed.

From the bottom of the sixth through the top of the eighth – a span of two innings – nine runs scored. Those two innings took as long as the five and half that preceded them. Luckily for the Phillies, they scored the bulk of the runs, coming away with a 6-3 win over the Rockies.

Before we look at what happened, let’s stick with the weirdness theme of Friday:

  • The Phillies have won four straight games after losing six straight just before that.
  • The four straight wins is the longest current winning streak in baseball. In fact, before the game even started, they had the longest active winning streak at three games, which is oddly short at any point in a season.
  • Despite being incredibly inconsistent for the first 38 games of the season, and standing at 19-19, a record that doesn’t excite and is one that is probably a few games below expectations (for instance, I had them at 22-16 at this point in my preseason projections), the Phillies are actually alone in second place in the NL East.
  • Even more incredibly, despite a 1-5 start the the season, and despite a six-game losing streak that was active just a week ago, the Phillies have somehow worked their way into a tie for the final playoff spot in the NL East, and have made up a couple of games on the Braves, who now can see the Phillies in their rearview mirror, albeit with a six-game cushion still.

That’s why the Phillies have been so frustrating. You never know what you are going to get with this team. Are you going to get what one smart baseball guy I know described during the sixth inning last night as a “bunch of unfocused dudes waiting around for ‘the moment,” or are you going to get the team that scores at least five runs in a game, which they’ve now done 14 times this season (12-2)?

It’s maddening to think of where the Phillies would be without those two terrible weeks. I mean, they’re 18-8 if you take away the first week of the season and the week of April 30-May 6. But you can’t take those weeks away. They happened. They’re part of your season.

What you can do, though is look forward and say, if we can avoid another one of those – and the 2022 Phillies, for example, didn’t have any six-game losing streaks, so it’s certainly possible – then everything will be just fine.

And if they continue to get the starting pitching they’ve gotten in the last four games – two from Walker and one each from Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler – they’ll be even better than fine, because you can survive games where the lineup takes until the seventh inning to wake up – like Friday – and still win.

Walker did allow three runs, but one scored on a sacrifice fly and the others were the result of a runner reaching base on a strikeout with a wild pitch and a double on a play that almost resulted in a great sliding catch by Dalton Guthrie, only to hit off his glove. Otherwise, Walker’s fastball/splitter mix was working for a second consecutive start.

It was enough to keep the Phillies around long enough for the big bats to power through:

This was a sight for sore eyes.

Bob and I talked about this on the latest episode of Crossed up Friday morning, discussing the need for more solid contact from a struggling Alec Bohm.

That home run was as solid as they come. It was his first since April 10. He also worked an important walk in the eighth inning to set up the game-winning hit, showing a really solid approach at the plate having been moved up into the No. 2 hole, something we could see happen a bit more against lefty starters.

It also tied the score at 1-1. Bryce Harper singled and then after a fielder’s choice from Nick Castellanos, Kyle Schwarber stepped to the plate:

Imagine Schwarber playing a full season in Colorado. I mean, it didn’t even seem like he got all of that ball, and it just kept carrying. It went 430 feet, and in fact he had an exit velocity of 106.1 MPH, so he did get a good piece after all, but just look at how Rockies centerfielder Randall Grichuk reads it. He comes in on it because he didn’t think Schwarber got all of it either.

It was Schwarber’s ninth homer of the year, his second in the four games since being moved into the middle of the order and both have come with runners on base, whereas the seven previous homers were all solo shots.

The Rockies were resilient and tied it in the bottom of the seventh. Those two runners reached base as described above off Walker and then scored on a single, a throwing error by Josh Harrison, and a sacrifice fly double play in which the runner crossed the plate just before the tag was applied at second base.

In the eighth, Trea Turner, who quietly extended his hitting streak to 11 games, led off with a double. Bohm had that integral walk mentioned earlier, setting up the game for Bryce Harper:

Harper is simply unreal. There are so few players who thrive in “the moment” like him. On the next pitch he took off for third, and honestly, a good throw from catcher Elias Diaz would have nailed him, but Diaz sailed it into left field and Harper trotted home with an insurance run.

“This might sound bad, but if it blows it blows,” Harper told the Associated Press, pointing to his elbow. “I’m not going to be reckless, but I don’t want to go out there and be hesitant.”

Seranthony Dominguez and Craig Kimbrel came in and shut the door and when the dust settled – second place. Playoff spot. Crazy.

The Phillies may have dodged an injury bullet too.

Realmuto’s fifth inning double was the Phillies’ first hit off Gomber, but with two outs and already in scoring position, there was no reason for Realmuto to try to make it to third. When he saw the throw from the outfield miss the cutoff man, he tried to chance it, and it was a bad idea.

Realmuto was thrown out at third. It was the 14th time this season a Phillie has been thrown out baserunning (this doesn’t include attempted steals). Only the Reds and Mets are worse at 15 times – and they both stink.

More importantly, Realmuto sprained the pinkie finger on his throwing hand (right) sliding into the base.

“I jammed it into the bag and then the bag popped up and landed on my finger,” Realmuto told the Associated Press. “It kind of bent it backward.”

Originally he stayed in the game, but the next time his spot came up in the lineup, backup catcher Garrett Stubbs pinch hit for him and roped a double off the right field wall.

The Phillies announced the injury as a strained pinkie, but they don’t believe it will impact his playing time. He won’t play Saturday, but expects to be back Sunday. He was going to have a game off during this trip anyway, and while the original plan may not have been for it to be Saturday, it won’t change much assuming he’s good to go, as expected, Sunday.

Other notes from the game:

  • We’ll start with one that wasn’t actually from the game, but Ranger Suarez will make his season debut Saturday after missing about two months with forearm tightness originally suffered at the World Baseball Classic. Also, Jose Alvarado (left elbow inflammation) is feeling better and is expected to start throwing on the current road trip. He’s on the 15-day I.L. and the earliest he can return is May 23.
  • Kimbrel continues to look good at the back end of the pen after having that meltdown against the Dodgers. That’s three straight games where he’s had an excellent appearance from the bullpen and he picked up his fourth save. It was also the 398th of his career. Only eight other relievers have 400 saves, Kenley Jansen joined that club earlier this week.
  • Guthrie almost made that great sliding catch, but he looks overmatched at the plate. Cristian Pache is still 2-4 weeks away from returning, so the Phillies may just have to suck it up right now, but their bench, which many thought was going to be an upgrade coming into the season, is really thin at the moment. Aside from Stubbs as a backup catcher, the Phillies would be better off playing Brandon Marsh full time rather than trot out Guthrie, Josh Harrison has given them very little so far in limited time (and his error almost cost them Friday) and Kody Clemens is keeping a spot warm as a fill-in first baseman because no one else is available (yet) to play there.
  • Oh, and Gold Glove Castellanos?