PHILADELPHIA — The opportunity for a douleheader sweep of sorts presented itself Sunday afternnoon at Citizens Bank Park and the Phillies had Zack Wheeler available to make it happen.
Their ace, with the help of three scoreless innings from the bullpen trio of Connor Brogdon, Bailey Falter and Hector Neris, did the job, allbeit in a rather peculiar way.
Wheeler, fresh off his three-pitch, one-strikeout All-Star Game appearance in Denver, delivered five dominant innings and earned the victory in a 7-4 win that allowed the Phillies to take three of the four games in the series. Wheeler, however, also endured a bumpy ride through the top of the third inning when Miami scorched a number of his offerings and scored four times on five hits, including a two-run homer by Adam Duvall.
In his other five innings, Wheeler looked every bit like the dominant pitcher who has entered the National League Cy Young Award conversation as he allowed just one hit and struck out seven batters.
Down 4-2 after Wheeler’s turbulent third inning, the Phillies scored twice in the fifth on solo home runs by Andrew McCutchen and Didi Gregorius to pull even and twice more in the sixth to pull ahead. Jean Segura plated the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly after the bench duo of Travis Jankowski and Brad Miller opened the inning with consecutive pinch-hit singles.
The Phillies needed only 14 minutes Sunday to win Saturday night’s suspended game 4-2 on a two-run, walk-off homer by catcher J.T. Realmuto. The two wins allowed the Phillies to close to within two games of the first-place New York Mets, who rallied for a win in Pittsburgh Sunday after blowing a big lead Saturday night.
When play was halted Saturday night, the skies above were not the only thing that appeared gloomy for the Phillies. Three outs away from a victory, Ranger Suárez, the Phillies’ previously reliable closer, surrendered a game-tying, two-run homer to Miami’s Jesús Aguilar with a storm closing in.
Two pitches into the top of the 10th, the storm had arrived in full force and the night was over for both sides, a suspended game leaving some unfinished business ahead of Sunday afternoon’s regularly scheduled series finale between the Phillies and Marlins.
After the resumption of the second game, reliever José Alvarado pitched a dominant top of the 10th inning, leaving designated runner Sandy Leon stranded at second base to set the stage for Realmuto’s heroics on a 0-2 fastball from Miami reliever Yimi García.
“The reason we’re playing [a suspended game] is on the offense,” Realmuto said during an interview on NBC Sports Philadelphia after the suspended game. “It’s not on Ranger. We had many opportunities early in the game to get guys in from third with less than two outs and we just didn’t get the job done. We should have had more distance between us in the ninth inning, so it was big for us to come out and have Alvarado be huge for us and then get this game done early and having [Zack Wheeler] pitch in the second game.”
Alvarado took the mound with the count at 1-1 on Jon Berti and registered a strikeout before retiring Isan Díaz on a sharp liner to right field and Jazz Chisholm on a lazy fly ball to left field.
Segura started the bottom of the 10th with a sacrifice bunt that moved designated runner Jankowski to third base and Realmuto, after getting down in the count 0-2, crushed a high, 98 mph fastball into the right-field seats for his ninth home run of the season.
It was the start of long but fruitful day for the Phillies, who moved to two games above .500 for the first time since May 18.
