WASHINGTON — The plan all along called for Ranger Suárez to pitch only three innings Monday night in his first major-league start in 1,037 days, and nothing — not even 33 easy, breezy pitches — was going to prompt the Phillies to deviate from it. Not this soon. Not with them counting on getting 11 or so more starts from the young lefty before the season is out.
And so, as usual, winning a game proved more difficult than it should have been.
The Phillies burned through seven pitchers, including two former closers through the first five innings in the Benjamin Button of pitching scripts. They blew two late leads. They went ahead again in their last at-bat, then sweated out a 7-5 victory over the remnants of the Washington Nationals after a trade-deadline fire sale here last week.
Trailing 3-2 in the top of the ninth, the Phillies tied it on Jean Segura’s double, went ahead on a two-run single by J.T. Realmuto, padded the lead on Alec Bohm’s RBI single, and tacked on one more run on a double play (more on that later).
ADVERTISEMENT
Newly acquired closer Ian Kennedy gave up a two-run homer to Carter Kieboom but ultimately closed it out, nudging the Phillies back to .500 (53-53) and 2½ games behind the New York Mets, who lost in Miami.
“It’s go time,” first baseman Rhys Hoskins said before the game. “We’re right in this thing. We haven’t played the best baseball since the break, but here we are. The feeling in that clubhouse is that it’s there for the taking. If we play and we can stay healthy, we feel like we’re the best team in this division and there’s no reason we can’t win this division if we can get guys to stay on the field.”
The Phillies’ hope still stems from their starting pitching. And the decision to move Suárez from the bullpen the rotation was made to provide more stability and depth. Never mind that Suárez hadn’t started since Sept. 30, 2018. The Phillies believe he has the repertoire to succeed in that role.
Suárez looked the part for three innings. He threw more four-seam fastballs than he typically does out of the bullpen and had a touch more velocity, sitting at 95 mph. He faced the minimum nine batters, allowed one walk, and quickly erased it with a double play.
From there, manager Joe Girardi worked backward. Héctor Neris came in after Suárez and got six outs, meaning the Phillies used former closers for the first five (scoreless) innings. Neris even got an at-bat, only the fourth of his career, and it ended like the previous three: with a strikeout.
More importantly, Neris hasn’t allowed a run in 10 of his last 11 appearances since a six-run blowup on July 4 against the San Diego Padres.
Pinch me
Leading 1-0 on Odúbel Herrera’s fifth-inning home run, the Phillies had a chance to break open the game in the sixth. They sent Hoskins to the plate as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded and two out. But Hoskins, who hadn’t played in three days because of a groin injury, struck out.
The Nationals tied the game in their sixth on a pinch-hit home run by Andrew Stevenson. And after the Phillies scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch in the seventh, the Nationals’ bench came up big again with Zimmerman.
Production off the bench has been lacking all season for the Phillies. Entering the game, their pinch-hitters ranked 23rd in the majors with a .582 OPS. They were one of seven teams with only one pinch-hit homer.
Bohm gets defensive
Bohm rates among the worst defensive players in the majors by most metrics. But he turned in a pair of stellar plays at third base before moving across the field to first in a double switch in the seventh inning.
Bohm charged and barehanded a slow roller and made a strong throw to retire Adrián Sanchez in the sixth inning. In the seventh, he kept a foot on the bag, stretched like a first baseman, and made a backhanded scoop of catcher Realmuto’s off-balance throw to cut down Yadiel Hernández on a fielder’s choice.
