Just when it seemed as though nobody was on a better roll than Rhys Hoskins and Aaron Nola during the Phillies' two-week surge in the National League standings, manager Joe Girardi submitted this gem of a move.
In deciding to sit slumping star Bryce Harper on Friday night, Girardi gave utilityman Phil Gosselin his first career start in right field _ against a right-handed starting pitcher, no less. Sure enough, Gosselin delivered a two-out double and scored the go-ahead run in the seventh inning of a 5-3 victory over the Mets in the opener of a four-game series at Citi Field in New York.
Hey, when you're hot, you're hot.
The Phillies, incidentally, are blazing. In grabbing their 10th victory in 11 games for the first time since 2011 _ and improving to 16-7 against National League East opponents, including 4-0 against the Mets _ they got a Joel Embiid-sized rebound from Jake Arrieta, who followed the shortest start of his career with seven solid innings. And Hoskins chipped in a diving stab of a line drive to put the brakes on a Mets rally in the eighth.
But Girardi continued to push all the right buttons.
With Harper stuck in a 5-for-35 tailspin, Girardi felt that he appeared "disconnected" at the plate. Maybe a night off will help. Regardless, Girardi could have used lefty-swinging Adam Haseley as Harper's stand-in, particularly since the Mets had right-hander Rick Porcello on the mound.
Instead, perhaps on a hunch, he went with Gosselin, who gets most of his playing time against lefties, and even stuck with the hitter that teammates call "Barrels" against righty reliever Jared Hughes in the seventh inning of a 2-2 game.
"We just liked the matchup," Girardi said. "I talk to my coaches a lot, especially (hitting coach) Joe (Dillon) about bath paths and who they match up well against. We just liked it. He didn't get off a starter, but we thought he was due to hit a bullet. Barrels was due to find a barrel and he did."
Lo and behold, Gosselin sat on a sinker in a full count and stroked a double to left field. Roman Quinn, fast becoming a Girardi favorite in center field, followed with a single to center field to drive home Gosselin.
From there, Girardi stuck with Arrieta, even though he had already thrown 91 pitches and was coming off a brutal start five nights earlier in which he allowed seven runs in 1 1/3 innings against the Atlanta Braves. Arrieta rewarded the manager's faith by retiring the side on 11 pitches, marking the first time since June 15, 2019 _ a span of 17 starts _ that he topped 100 pitches in a game.
Arrieta worked out of a two-on, none-out jam in the first inning, then cruised through the second and third and struck out Jeff McNeil to strand two runners in the fourth.
The Phillies, meanwhile, staked Arrieta to a two-run lead on an RBI single by Jay Bruce in the second inning and back-to-back singles and a force out in the third. But Porcello retired 11 batters in a row from that point, keeping the Mets within one big swing of getting back in the game.
After Andres Gimenez's one-out single in the fifth inning, Michael Conforto unloaded on a sinker that caught a little too much of the plate for a game-tying two-run homer.
But Arrieta didn't make any other mistakes. And on a night when his manager didn't make any, the Phillies kept right on winning.
