What looked like a good night for the Phillies, a night in which they were able to sneak a few runs across the plate against Chris Sale, turned into a bullpen nightmare.
It started off a little rough for the Phillies, Aaron Nola serving up a home run to Matt Olson that somehow clanged off the fair pole in left field to give the Braves a quick 1-0 lead.
From there though, Nola was really good. He looked to be struggling
with his grip all night long, constantly going back to the rosing bag, to the mound, anywhere to get a good hold on the baseball, but something worked and he kept getting outs.
On offense, he got all the help he needed in the second inning. Sale got the first two outs with ease, then let his foot off the gas. He gave up a single to Edmundo Sosa, walked Bryan de la Cruz and hit J.T. Realmuto with a pitch to load the bases for your favorite Hill and mine, Derek. Doing what he seemingly has done all year long, Hill delivered with a bases clearing double that put the Phillies up 3-1.
Sale was so good that the Phillies amassed only four hits all evening, two in this inning, but they made them count.
From there, there was a pitcher’s duel in place between the starters. Both made it into the seventh inning, Sale completing his, Nola needing some help to finish his. Austin Riley homered in the seventh to chase Nola from the game, but Jose Alvarado came in to lock things down in that frame, followed by Alex McFarlane in the eighth to keep the game 3-2.
And yet they could have added another run in the ninth, but another baserunning blunder, this one by Bryce Harper, prevented them from pushing a leadoff double across the plate to get an all important insurance run that would have been important.
To close out the game, having used Jhoan Duran two days in a row, Don Mattingly was loathe to using him yet again, so Jonathan Bowlan was given the save assignment on the evening. He could not get the job done, giving up two singles that weren’t exactly scalded, but were put in the right spot (and were aided by a bad error in center field by Hill) to allow the Braves to tie the score at 3. Bowlan was able to get out of further trouble by getting Ronald Acuna to fly out and Olson to ground out, but the game went to extra innings, still knotted up.
Once the inning began, Justin Crawford was summoned to face Raisel Iglesias and on the first pitch of the at bat, he drove him Bryson Stott to take the lead.
Chase Shugart was the choice to close the game down in the bottom half of the tenth, yet could not get the job done. With a runner on second, a ground ball to second baseman Luis Arraez and a flyball to Justin Crawford got the run across and tied the game once more, sending the game to the eleventh. There, Arraez was able to drive home pinch runner Garrett Stubbs for the fifth run of the game for the Phillies, but even with loading the bases, that’s all they would get. Shugart got Austin Riley to begin the inning, then was relieved by Brooks Raley. He was able to induce a pop up from Dom Smith, but Ha-Seong Kim of all people, he of the .135 batting average, delivered the game tying hit.
Then Drake Baldwin came up and, well, with Raley on the mound, you can guess what happened next.
Brutal. Just brutal.
