Final Score: Phillies 12, Nationals 3
When Rob Thomson is asked a question related to a player’s recent hot or cold streak, Philadelphia’s skipper sometimes mentions the term “ebbs and flows”. He’ll talk about how over the course of a 162-game season, it’s hard for a player not to experience the ups and downs that come along with such a lengthy season.
Of late, the Phillies offense has gone through a rather interesting series of ups and downs. Before their current road trip, Philadelphia played a 10-game homestand where they scored 61 runs. Most of those runs, 60 to be exact, came in the first eight games of the homestand, though.
After those eight games, the Phillies scored just once in their next two contests at Citizens Bank Park. Then, they scored one run in their series opener against the Blue Jays on Tuesday. But before this afternoon’s game against the Nationals, the Phillies scored 16 total runs in their previous two games — a win over Toronto and a loss last night. Again, it’s been a rather interesting series of ups and downs.
So heading into today, it wasn’t crazy to wonder what kind of offense would show up for Thomson’s club, despite facing a pitcher with a 4.76 ERA on the season in Jake Irvin.
The club’s offense didn’t get much going against the right-handed Irvin, who tossed six shutout innings. The only threat the Phillies posed came in the sixth as they worked the bases loaded, but Jake Cave went down swinging to end the frame.
But an inning later, the offense threatened again — and finally came through.
With two outs and runners on the corners, Nick Castellanos stepped to the plate. He was facing reliever Andrés Machado, who had struck Castellanos out with a pair of runners on in the seventh last night. And in the same situation today, it was the veteran outfielder who won the battle, tying the game with a three-run home run:
In the bottom of the seventh, Seranthony Domínguez, on in relief of starter Cristopher Sánchez, worked his way around a self-inflicted, runner-on-third-with-one-out jam. Getting out of that scenario seemed like it saved the game for the Phillies at the time. A half inning later, it was a distant memory.
Trea Turner led off the eighth inning, after going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in his first three at-bats on the day. After working a hitter-friendly count, Turner launched a go-ahead home run — his 13th of the year:
Philadelphia wasn’t done there, though. Kyle Schwarber and Alec Bohm eventually hit back-to-back RBI singles to give the Phillies a three-run lead. Schwarber then scored on a Castellanos sacrifice fly. And then, Bryson Stott put an exclamation point on the whole inning with a three-run blast:
Turner then came up to bat for a second time in the inning, and for good measure, added another run to the board with his second homer of the frame:
Turner became the third player in Phillies history to homer twice in an inning, joining Von Hayes and Andy Seminick. Turner was the first to do it for the Phillies since Hayes homered twice in the first inning against the New York Mets on June 11, 1985.
All in all, the Phillies put eight runs on the board in the eighth inning, and ended the day with 12 runs on 16 hits. After a “down” first six innings, the lineup finished their day in the “up” category. Let the ebbs and flows continue.
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