Final Score: Braves 10, Phillies 8 (10 innings)
It was 10 days ago when a late-inning rally by the Phillies in the eighth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers gave them a two-run lead. José Alvarado started the bottom half of that inning trying to protect that lead. He didn’t have his best stuff and was charged with four runs after an Alec Bohm error allowed three runners to score. The Phillies lost.
This afternoon, Alvarado entered an 8-8 game in the top of the 10th after Bryce Harper launched a game-tying, two-out home run in the bottom of the ninth. The hard-throwing lefty didn’t have his best stuff again and allowed two runs to score, resulting in another Phillies loss after the offense fought so hard to get back into the game.
After six complete innings, the Phillies were down 8-4. Taijuan Walker struggled with his command and was charged with five earned runs. Andrew Bellatti was charged with three more after giving up back-to-back home runs in the sixth. Walker now has a 5.73 ERA over his last six starts.
Despite Walker struggling, the Phillies kept clawing their way back into the game. Alec Bohm had a pair of two-out, RBI base hits in the third and fifth innings, respectively. Bryson Stott nearly drove in two runs on a routine fly ball that dropped onto the outfield grass after Ronald Acuña Jr. was blinded by the sun in the fifth.
Acuña quickly made up for his misplay by nailing Bohm at the plate after throwing an absolute seed to catcher Travis d’Arnaud, keeping his team in the lead.
Bellatti eventually pitched a clean seventh, rebounding after allowing back-to-back titanic home runs from Michael Harris II and Acuña the prior inning.
After that, Trea Turner launched his 15th home run since the start of August to bring the Phillies back within two runs. Turner now has 10 home runs in his last 11 games.
Manager Rob Thomson called upon Dylan Covey after Bellatti to keep the score where it was at. The right-hander did his job by delivering a scoreless eighth and ninth inning, giving the Phillies a shot to come all the way back.
Philadelphia went down 1-2-3 in the eighth against left-handed reliever A.J. Minter. An inning later, Raisel Iglesias took the mound for the Braves. After two quick outs, Turner stepped up to the plate. He dribbled a grounder to second baseman Ozzie Albies, who made what could’ve been ruled a throwing error but was scored as a single. Turner was safe at first.
That brought Harper to the dish. The two-time NL MVP already had three career homers against Iglesias and delivered with his fourth homer off the righty to tie the game.
Alvarado entered the game with things tied up in the 10th. Kevin Pillar started the inning with an RBI single. Alvarado threw a wild pitch during the next at-bat, allowing Pillar to advance to second. After striking out d’Arnaud, Alvarado gave up a double to Orlando Arcia that scored Pillar.
Alvarado then induced back-to-back ground outs to get out of the inning.
In the bottom of the 10th, the Phillies went down 1-2-3 against right-hander Kirby Yates, so Pillar scoring ended up not mattering all that much.
Harper’s homer was his third late-inning homer in the last 20 days. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, once again.
It was a tough way to lose a game after fighting all the way back. The Phillies will have to erase the tough loss from their minds rather quickly as they try to avoid a doubleheader sweep roughly two hours from now.
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