PHILADELPHIA _ Rhys Hoskins does not miss fastballs. He entered Tuesday night a .301 hitter with a prodigious .771 slugging percentage against fastballs. He stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in the seventh inning of a tie game and opposed a pitcher, Pedro Baez, who could not throw anything but his fastball.
So, for nine pitches in an eventual 6-2 Phillies win over the Dodgers, they wrestled. Baez fired 98-mph heaters. Hoskins, blessed with quick hands, fouled four of them. Baez, on the 10th pitch, threw Hoskins a 97-mph fastball in the zone. Hoskins clobbered it to the wall in left-center field. The bases cleared. The rookie had done it again.
The Phillies, in consecutive nights, slayed Los Angeles with Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish on the mound. These two teams were separated by 38 games in the standings before this series. The gap has not appeared that vast at Citizens Bank Park.
That is but a silver lining. The Dodgers will play into October while the Phillies watch from home. Two September victories do not dull the summertime pain. But those who watched inside this half-filled ballpark sensed something.
There was Aaron Nola, keeping his now-potent offense close with seven strong innings. There was Odubel Herrera, matched against another slow-paced man in Baez, drawing a four-pitch walk in 2 minutes and 39 seconds to tie the game. There was J.P. Crawford, who began the rally with a triple. There was Aaron Altherr, who atoned for an inning-ending double play in the sixth inning with a solo homer in the eighth.
Nola's ERA is 3.56, which ranks 11th in the National League. He has thrown 166 innings. It is difficult to overstate how impressive that is, considering Nola entered the season as nothing more than a question mark because of the elbow injury that robbed half of his 2016 season. Consider this: Just 15 pitchers in the National League have posted an ERA below 4.00 with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title this season. Nola is one of them. If healthy, he is a rotation mainstay.
There are no more superlatives for Hoskins. Before his decisive double in the seventh inning, he fought Darvish for eight pitches in the sixth inning. Hoskins lashed a single to left that plated the Phillies' first run of the night. It chased Darvish from the game.
Hoskins batted four times Tuesday night. He forced Dodgers pitchers to throw 30 pitches to him. He became the first major league player to reach 40 RBIs in 40 or fewer career games since Albert Pujols in 2001.
Every new tidbit or number is more astounding than the previous, but this is the essence of Hoskins: He has reached base in 42.8 percent of his first 166 plate appearances. The rookie has proven to be a difficult out, so early in his career, and the Dodgers can attest to that after Tuesday night.
