PHILADELPHIA _ Upon rejoining the Phillies on Monday after a three-day paternity leave for the birth of his first child in Las Vegas, Bryce Harper remarked about the unseasonable chill in the air at Citizens Bank Park.
"The weather out there feels like October," Harper said.
From here on out, it might as well be October for the Phillies. The season has been reduced to a five-week sprint to the finish line, with a National League wild-card berth hanging in the balance.
Gabe Kapler senses the urgency enough that, according to multiple sources, he called a five-minute team meeting before Monday's game to reinforce the importance of doing little things correctly in the aftermath of Cesar Hernandez's failure to run hard out of the box Sunday in Miami.
Maybe the Phillies are finally sensing it, too. They rallied from a two-run deficit in the eighth inning to take a lead against the Pittsburgh Pirates, then won it, 6-5, on maligned utilityman Sean Rodriguez's walkoff homer in the 11th inning against reliever Michael Feliz. Rodriguez had been in a 1-for-21, 12-strikeout slump since July 27, prompting questions before the game about why the Phillies kept him on the roster and optioned Maikel Franco to triple-A.
After dropping two of three games to the lowly Marlins over the weekend, the Phillies got back on track against the Pirates, the only NL team that has a worse record (11-31) than Miami since the All-Star break. The Phillies moved to within one game of the idle Chicago Cubs for the final wild-card berth.
As usual, though, all good Phillies news was tempered with trouble. Second baseman Scott Kingery left the game in the sixth inning with what the team labeled as "abdominal soreness."
Trailing 4-2 in the eighth inning _ and with the prospect of facing lights-out Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez in the ninth _ the Phillies' here-today, gone-the-next offense rallied for a 5-4 lead on a pair of home runs.
It began with Harper, whose solo shot into the right-field bleachers was ruled a homer and confirmed by the umpiring crew chief's review. And it continued when J.T. Realmuto reached on a hustle single to third base, precisely the sort of effort that Kapler wants to see.
With Realmuto extending the inning, former Pirates outfielder Corey Dickerson lined a two-run homer into the right-field seats. It marked his fourth homer in 73 at-bats with the Phillies after hitting four in 127 at-bats with Pittsburgh.
But the Pirates got even in the top of the ninth against closer Hector Neris. Josh Bell jumped on a splitter and crushed his 33rd homer of the season to center field.
The Phillies loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the ninth. But Pirates reliever Chris Stratton got Rhys Hoskins to foul out before striking out Harper on a 95-mph heater. Hoskins, stuck in a miserable 9-for-78 malaise, was booed loudly on his way back to the dugout.
Making his fifth start since being traded to the Phillies on July 29 and still looking for his first win with his new team, Jason Vargas mostly cruised through the first six innings after being staked to a 2-0 lead. He gave up a run in the fifth on a two-out double by No. 8-hitting Adam Frazier and an RBI single by pitcher Joe Musgrove, but nevertheless looked strong in the sixth and began the seventh inning at 83 pitches.
It only took nine pitches, though, for the lefty to lose control over the game.
Vargas allowed a first-pitch leadoff single to Melky Cabrera and a game-tying RBI double that came within inches of landing in the flower beds in left field for a two-run homer. After walking Jacob Stallings, Vargas was replaced by lefty Jose Alvarez, who yielded a sacrifice bunt to Frazier and intentionally walked pinch-hitting Bell.
At that point, Kapler turned to newly acquired reliever Jared Hughes. And the big right-hander promptly allowed a two-run single through the left side by Kevin Newman that gave the Pirates a 4-2 lead.
The here-today, gone-the-next Phillies offense didn't do much against Musgrove, who scattered five hits (four singles) in six walk-free innings. Musgrove held Hoskins and Harper in check, in particular. The most dangerous hitters in the Phillies' lineup went 0-for-6 with three strikeouts against him.
But Brad Miller, inserted in the lineup in place of benched Hernandez, still gave the Phillies a 2-0 lead with one swing in the fourth inning. After Realmuto led off with a single, Miller belted a two-out home run to left-center field.
