Try not to move is good advice when you are trapped in a Jeep with a Tyrannosaurus rex bearing down on you. It is bad advice when you are throwing a cutter. Unfortunately, as Marlins pitcher Chris Paddack found out, the Phillies are not like T. rexes,, and they will hit you very, very hard if you (or rather, your pitches) aren’t moving well.
Trea Turner got the proceedings started with a ground rule double, the ball bouncing happily over the wall. Even more happily, Kyle Schwarber walked in his first
at-bat, snapping an eight-PA strikeout streak. Bryce Harper’s subsequent walk was less dramatic, but no less welcome. Less welcome was Alec Bohm’s bases-loaded dribbler to the left side of the infield. It had little power and didn’t seem to take any odd bounces. But strangely, delightfully, the Marlins couldn’t turn it into any outs, with the throw to second arriving just after a sliding Harper, and the follow-up throw to first arriving just after a sprinting Bohm. 1-0, Phillies. It became 2-0 when Paddack walked Marsh, forcing in a run. The Marlins finally got an out in the form of J.T. Realmuto— but as it took the form of a sacrifice fly, and an extension of the Philadelphia lead to 3-0, it offered little solace.
The subsequent three-run homer from Bryson Stott felt slightly cruel to the home club. Not in the sense of poor sportsmanship, but in a sort of cosmic sense. Even more so because it slipped just past the outstretched glove of a leaping Kyle Stowers, flinging himself over the wall like his team’s namesake flings itself out of the water. The Phillies ended the first frame with a half-dozen runs, and the Marlins ended it with a need for a half-dozen anti-nausea pills.
The nausea for the Fish did not lessen in a disappointing second, where they put the first two batters aboard against Jesús Luzardo, then saw the next three trudge back to the dugout. It did not lessen in the third, when an error put Realmuto on first, a double put Felix Reyes on second, and a seeing-eye single from Justin Crawford scored one. Paddack’s unhappy Sunday thus ended.
The next few innings consisted of a holding pattern. The two teams scattered a few hits, though no more runs scored.
The Marlins’ fortunes started to change in the top of the seventh, but it didn’t seem that way at first. Bohm singled, a fly ball to right dropping right in front of the glove of a sliding Owen Caissie in right. Marsh lined a ball to left that tripped up Javier Sonoja, and the Phillies had runners on second and third, none out. But Stott flew out, too shallow to score Bohm, Marsh grounded into an unassisted putout at first, and Reyes struck out, and the threat was ended.
The Marlins then put their first runs of the game on the board, as Luzardo hit Leo Jiménez on the foot with a pitch, then tossed a four-seamer to Esteury Ruiz that got smacked into left for a two-run homer. Right after, Javier Sanoja slapped a pitch right up the third base line for a double, and Luzardo’s day (6.1 IP, 10 K, 2 ER) was done. Chase Shugart came in to replace him, and navigated his way out of the inning without allowing a run. He did the same in the eighth.
As the top of the ninth wrapped up, the Phillies wrapped up their sixth straight scoreless inning. Had it not been for the eruption in the first inning, this would have been cause for frustration. But a sixth-run first buys you a lot of leeway, and ought to.
The Marlins faced Orion Kerkering in the ninth. The game seemed to end on a nice twirling throw from Trea Turner to put Ruiz out at first. The Marlins challenged, the replay center confirmed that the game had indeed come to a close, and the Marlins’ hopes finally went the way of the dinosaurs.
The Phillies are 14-20. The final game of the series against the Marlins is tomorrow at 6:40.
