PHILADELPHIA — Say this for the Phillies: They will be relevant this summer.
That wasn’t a foregone conclusion nine days ago. When they came back from a three-city road trip, the Phillies were three games under .500 and had lost 12 of the last 18 games. The season appeared to be at an inflection point. They could pull it together and stay in the thick of a bunched-up National League East race or fade away before schools let out.
Consider this last week to be a statement then. The toughest tests still lay ahead, beginning this week in Los Angeles. But in closing out a wildly successful homestand with an easy, breezy (finally) 7-0 romp over a New York Yankees team that is in full-blown crisis mode, the Phillies made clear to the announced crowd of 38,512 -- the largest of the season -- that they aren’t about to fade away.
In going 6-2 against the Washington Nationals, Atlanta Braves, and Yankees, the Phillies, at 32-31, climbed above .500 for the first time since May 19, when they were 22-21. They picked up only one game on the division-leading New York Mets during the homestand. But they gained 2 1/2 games in the wild-card standings.
(And no, when you’ve been absent from the playoffs for nine years, mid-June is not too early to pay attention to the wild card.)
For a change, the Phillies didn’t need last-at-bat theatrics. After three consecutive walk-off victories (two against the Braves and Saturday against the Yankees), they grabbed a four-run lead in the second inning with more top-of-the-order thunder from Odúbel Herrera, tacked on three runs in the fifth, and let Aaron Nola do the rest in his sharpest outing in weeks.
Nola barely broke a sweat in allowing three hits over 7 2/3 scoreless innings. Never mind that the Yankees had neither Aaron Judge nor Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup. He allowed three hits and one walk, struck out nine, and walked off the mound to a nice ovation in a confidence-building outing after posting a 5.68 ERA and failing to get out of the seventh inning in his previous six starts.
So, yes, Nola needed that. But the Phillies needed a game like this, too. None of their flaws -- poor defense and a shaky bullpen, to name two of the more prominent ones -- is going away. But they played their most mistake-free game in a while and won their third consecutive series for the first time all season.
Herrera picked up two more hits, while Segura notched his third three-hit game in a row. And with the two of them providing sock in the leadoff and No. 2 spots, manager Joe Girardi has been able to push Andrew McCutchen and Alec Bohm down in the order. The result: A longer, deeper lineup that produced 43 runs in the last six games.
The Phillies grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning on three consecutive singles by Herrera, Segura, and J.T. Realmuto. They piled on against Yankees starter Domingo Germán in the second inning, scoring three runs on McCutchen’s leadoff double, Bohm’s single, a two-out RBI double off the left-field wall by Herrera, and Segura’s two-run single.
Segura led off the fifth inning with a triple. Realmuto and Bryce Harper followed with back-to-back singles, the ninth and 10th hits allowed by Germán. When the Yankees turned to the bullpen, McCutchen lined a two-run double to open a 7-0 lead.
Nola took advantage of the Yankees’ aggressiveness early in the game. He had an eight-pitch first inning, aided by a ground-ball double play from Gleyber Torres, and a 10-pitch second. But he also commanded his fastball and got ahead in the count, which didn’t allow the Yankees to work deep counts.
