PHILADELPHIA — You could lead with Brandon Kintzler’s hanging two-strike sinker that San Francisco Giants pinch-hitter Darin Ruf launched into the Phillies’ bullpen for a game-tying three-run home run Wednesday.
Or you could focus on the routine two-out fly ball that Phillies left fielder Andrew McCutchen dropped later in the seventh inning to put the go-ahead run on base and into scoring position.
In a series that brought polarizing former Phillies manager Gabe Kapler back to town, you could certainly break down yet another debatable in-game pitching move by his successor, Joe Girardi.
But those all wound up as secondary storylines after Andrew Knapp stroked a single to right field to drive home Bryce Harper in the ninth inning to give the Phillies a sweep-averting 6-5 victory in a rain-interrupted matinee at Citizens Bank Park.
The Phillies won for the first time in three games against Kapler’s Giants and completed a six-game homestand with a 3-3 record. After a day off Thursday, they will open a three-game series in the thin mountain air at Coors Field in Colorado on Friday night.
Harper, scorching hot on the homestand, tied the game in the seventh inning with a two-out solo homer. He began the decisive rally by working a leadoff walk against Giants reliever Wandy Peralta, went to second on Brad Miller’s fourth hit of the game, and scored on Knapp’s one-out hit.
The Phillies went ahead 3-0 in the second inning on Mickey Moniak’s first career home run, a three-run missile into the left-field seats against Giants starter Anthony DeSclafani, and were leading 4-1 with two outs and a runner on third in the sixth when Girardi tried to play for an insurance run.
Instead, he wound up cracking the door for the Giants.
Girardi lifted starter Zach Eflin for a pinch-hitter, even though he had thrown only 86 pitches and might have been able to give the Phillies one more inning. But Girardi called on Scott Kingery, who came up from the alternate training site before the game and promptly struck out on four pitches to strand the runner on third.
The bullpen door swung open and out stepped Kintzler. He allowed back-to-back hits to Wilmer Flores and Brandon Crawford, then hung a sinker to Ruf, the former Phillie, who smashed his fifth career pinch-hit homer to tie it up at 4-4.
From there, Girardi turned to lefty JoJo Romero. He got one out and should have recorded another if McCutchen had closed his mitt on Mike Yastrzemski’s fly ball. But the ball dropped, Yastrzemski reached second base, and scored on Alex Dickerson’s single to give the Giants a 5-4 lead.
Harper took everyone off the hook by crushing a slider out to right-center field for a game-tying homer in the bottom of the seventh, a fitting capper to a homestand in which he went 11 for 17 (.647).
Eflin appeared displeased in the third inning when the umpires allowed him to throw his full complement of warmup pitches and one pitch to Brandon Crawford only to call the teams off the field as the sky darkened, the wind whipped, and thunder boomed in the distance.
But Eflin returned to the mound after a 44-minute rain delay and looked no worse for wear — or wait. He erased a leadoff single in the fourth inning, curbed the Giants’ fifth-inning rally at one run, and averted a two-on, two-out jam in the sixth by winning a seven-pitch duel with Buster Posey, who hit a wind-propelled fly ball to the warning track in right field.
The Phillies tacked on a run in the sixth with an assist from Dickerson, the Giants’ left fielder. After Miller led off with a single and went to second on a groundout, Nick Maton’s single skidded past Dickerson and rolled to the wall. Miller scored easily to restore the three-run lead.
