Phillies cruise to series sweep as team begins to round into contending form
Tuesday night was just great fun. The Phillies largely coasted to victory as they wildly outplayed the Rays. Zach Wheeler was incredible from start to finish, going seven innings while only giving up four hits and two runs while striking out nine. Despite allowing another homerun, Wheeler is well on his way to another immaculate season as he is second in all of baseball in strikeouts and innings pitched. He is the ace of the best rotation in baseball. In a much more exciting turn of events, the offense is beginning to turn things on. Their disciplined approach, commitment to working pitchers, and hard contact rates that they have carried since the beginning of this year are finally beginning to pay dividends over the past two weeks. Drew Rasmussen is one of the Rays’ better pitchers and a great pitcher in general. The Phillies had him sweating bullets and out of the game before the end of the fifth as he seemingly needed seven pitches to get each batter out. The Phillies would reach base 17 times in this game as they would score eight runs. In the second inning, the Phillies’ offense would get kicked started by a Kyle Schwarber’s MLB-leading 12th homerun and Alec Bohm’s first since September 20th of last year to put them up 3-0, and the Phillies never looked back. Even as the Rays closed to gap to 3-2, it never felt like the Phillies were out of control. Nick Castellanos would break the game wide open in the 8th after a Schwarber RBI single to hit a three-run bomb that would net the Phillies a 7-2 lead. Orion Kerkering and Matt Strahm would allow a run each in their innings of relief, but the Phillies would cruise to an 8-4 victory.
Wednesday night would be even more of the same. The Phillies took a 1-0 lead on a Trea Turner bomb in the third, and that would be all they needed. Christopher Sánchez would struggle with location, walking three, but he would blank the Rays over six innings, only allowing one hit while striking out five. He was relieved by Taijuan Walker in his first relief appearance, who looked electric. His stuff has a little more pop as he would earn the old school save as he went the final three innings while only giving up one base hit. He struck out seven batters, including the first five he faced! Offensively, the team would just keep chopping the wood. Johan Rojas would successfully suicide squeeze JT Realmuto home in the fourth to make it 2-0. The Phillies would score four more in the inning as they just kept the inning going with base hits as Stott and Turner both singled to drive in a run until a Bryce Harper two-run double made it 6-0. The Phillies would get one more run in the 6th from another Stott RBI single to make it 7-0 and would ride their pitching to another easy victory.
When the Phillies took the field Thursday night, they would look to complete only their second sweep of the year. Things would start well as after a Bryson Stott double, the Phillies would small ball him in with a fly out by Trea Turner that moved him over, and a sacrifice fly from Bryce Harper brought him home for the early 1-0 lead. The Rays would immediately punch back as Junior Caminero would clobber a pitch from starter Jesús Luzardo to immediately bring it back to 1-1. Luzardo pitched relatively well, only giving up one more run in the third to make it 2-1, as he would go 5.1 while striking out four. The biggest criticism of Luzardo may be that every start, he seems to have an inning that requires 25-30 pitches, which hurts his ability to go deep into games regularly. That being said, he was more than enough against the Rays, but ran into some trouble in the sixth. After allowing runners on first and second, the Phillies would turn the game over to Carlos Hernández, who would be making shockingly easy work of the Rays, ending the inning by striking out the next two batters.
The story of the evening was the Phillies’ offense, though as they appeared to go silent once again, and when Yandy Díaz took Tanner Banks deep in the bottom of the 7th to make it 5-1, it appeared cut and dry. The Phillies had different ideas, though. In the eighth inning, after getting two runners on, Bryson Stott would launch an absolute tank shot to bring the game to 5-4. Immediately after that, Trea Turner would launch what looked like an absolute bomb that would somehow barely go over the wall, but Christopher Morel would get his glove under it and bring it back into play for what was only a double. Harper was unable to drive him in and grounded out to end the inning. Jordan Romano would again have a solid outing, and we would head to the Phillies’ final three outs. The Phillies were able to do just enough for Pete Fairbanks to break his perfect 8/8 in saves this year, as after some small ball, they were able to squeak home one run to make it 5-5. The Phillies would turn to José Alvarado in the 9th. While things would be a little shaky, a clutch strike’em out, throw’em out by JT Realmuto would help secure extra innings. The Phillies would waste no time as Brandon Marsh would double in the ghost runner to give the Phillies the 6-5 lead. Knowing the importance of another run, Stott would sacrifice Marsh to third, and a Trea Turner single would give the Phillies that 7-5 cushion. The Phillies would hand the ball to Matt Strahm in the bottom half and, despite allowing the ghost runner to score, would shut the door for a clutch 7-6 win and series sweep.
Sweeps are always fun, and it appears this Phillies team may be having fun for the first time. This was certainly their most complete series of the year as the offense, starting pitching, bullpen, and even the defense played the best they had at the same time this year. Since the Mets series, the Phillies are 9-3, and things are beginning to swing in a positive direction. This team looks focused, confident, and like they are enjoying playing the game. Players with early struggles like Aaron Nola, Jordan Romano, Alec Bohm, and Trea Turner seem to have turned a corner and have all been positive contributors for the past few weeks. The bullpen at large has stabilized a fair amount, too. They’ll get a fun test this weekend as they head to Cleveland to play one of the better teams in the AL, the Guardians.