Though the prospect of leapfrogging the Milwaukee Brewers for the number one overall seed in the National League is fairly unlikely, the Philadelphia Phillies (95-65) refused to take their foot off the gas,
defeating the Minnesota Twins (69-91) by a score of 3-1 on Friday night.
Aaron Nola saved the best performance of his troubled season for last, going eight innings allowing just two hits on a solo homerun to Christian Vazquez and a triple to ex-Phil, Cody Clemens, the first of which didn’t come until two outs in the sixth inning.
A pair of singles by Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper off Twins’ starter, Joe Ryan, set the table for an Alec Bohm sacrifice fly to score the game’s first run in the bottom of the first inning.
Edmundo Sosa continued his recent power surge with his eleventh homerun of the season in the bottom of the fifth inning to extend the lead to two.
They would tack on one more run in the bottom of the sixth off Twins’ reliever, Travis Adams, with a leadoff single by Bohm and an RBI double by Brandon Marsh.
Jhoan Duran closed the door for Nola, notching his 32nd save of the year and 16th for the Phillies.
With his nine strikeouts tonight, Nola (1,876) passed Robin Roberts (1,871) for second on the Phillies all-time list. He’ll need 1,156 more to take the number one spot from Steve Carlton.
Part of the return for Duran is scheduled to face his former club as Ranger Suarez will face Mick Abel tomorrow night in the penultimate game of the regular season.
