PHILADELPHIA — It started with back-to-back infield hits that initially looked like outs. It continued with a fly ball that got caught up in a whipping wind and fell for an RBI double. It featured an intentional walk of a rookie who was called up two days earlier and a pitcher who got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
And for the Phillies, it was pure catharsis.
Go ahead and argue that the Phillies got lucky in the second inning Friday night at Citizens Bank Park, that their six-run, five-hit outburst really should have been another goose egg if only the St. Louis Cardinals could catch the ball. But after the week they have had, they weren’t about to give anything back.
If anything, the Phillies needed that inning — and the stress-free 9-2 giggler that it sparked, in conjunction with a strong start from Zach Eflin — like a stand-up comedian needs laughs.
The Phillies sent 12 batters to the plate in the second inning against Cardinals starter Carlos Martínez. Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper delivered the big blows — a two-run single and a two-run double, respectively — and did they ever need them.
McCutchen had been hitless in 14 at-bats and Harper in eight, including a 109-mph missile that was caught on the warning track in right field in the first inning. McCutchen, in particular, is off to a rocky start (5 for 36 entering Friday night), although manager Joe Girardi said before the game that he hadn’t considered removing him from the leadoff spot.
“I just think it’s a little early for that,” Girardi said. “We’ve played 12 games, we’ve had days off. It’s been kind of inconsistent. I still think it’s pretty early to be shuffling everybody around in the lineup.”
But this was bigger than a slumping leadoff man. For three days in New York, the Phillies couldn’t hit a beach ball. They scored a total of four runs, picked up 16 hits, and struck out 31 times. Somehow it was even uglier than the numbers. Harper acknowledged that he needs to be better and challenged his teammates to feel the same way.
The Phillies are a different team at home, though. It has been the case for a few years. Since the beginning of the 2018 season, they are 119-82 in South Philly and 77-119 everywhere else.
So, regardless of what went wrong earlier this week against the Mets, the best cure was simply coming back to play before an announced crowd of 10,842 on a blustery April night that felt more like October, at least weather-wise.
The Cardinals lent a hand, too, when they were betrayed by their typically surehanded defense. Shortstop Paul DeJong couldn’t handle Alec Bohm’s routine grounder with one out in the second inning; second baseman Matt Carpenter had Didi Gregorius’ grounder clank off his glove; center fielder Dylan Carlson thought he settled under a fly ball from Jean Segura only to see the wind take it elsewhere.
Cardinals manager Mike Shildt took it from there. Rather than letting Martinez attack Mickey Moniak, whose only at-bats in the last two weeks have come at the Phillies’ alternate training site, Shildt called for an intentional walk to load the bases with one out. But Martinez hit pitcher Zach Eflin with an 0-1 sinker. Eflin became the first Phillies pitcher since Gene Conley in 1960 to pick up an RBI by getting hit by a pitch.
McCutchen followed by fighting off a high-and-tight pitch for a two-run single to right field. After Rhys Hoskins walked, Harper shot a two-run double to right field. It was 6-0, and the rout was on.
Eflin didn’t take his foot off the pedal, though. He retired 12 consecutive batters between DeJong’s two-out single in the second inning and Tommy Edman’s two-out single in the sixth. The Cardinals didn’t have an extra-base hit until Carlson’s leadoff double in the eighth inning. Justin Williams followed with his first major-league home run to spoil Eflin’s bid for a shutout.
But Eflin became the first Phillies starter to get into the eighth inning this season. He threw 104 pitches, his highest total in a start since Sept. 28, 2019, and continued to look like an emerging top-of-the-rotation starter.
And he was backed by the high-scoring offense that the Phillies expected to have when the season began. If this winds up being the game that finally gets the bats going, they can thank the Cardinals later.
