Phillies play best baseball of the season after biggest gut punch

PHILADELPHIA — Give the Phillies credit for responding to adversity.

The team took a train ride home from Washington on Sunday after a road trip from hell. It started off with a sweep of the Rangers, but ended with the loss of their ace pitcher Zack Wheeler for what could be the remainder of the season.

Since it was revealed that Wheeler will miss time with a blood clot, the Phillies are 4-0. They came home and swept one of the best teams in the American League in the Seattle Mariners. Sure, the M’s were reeling at the end of a four-city east coast swing, but so were the Phillies.

“The most impressive part of it is it’s the back end of a 13-day (stretch) without a day off,” manager Rob Thomson said.

Thomson believes that resiliency is part of their identity.

“I really didn’t learn anything because I know who they are,” Thomson said. “They grind, they’re resilient and they fight. The (Wheeler) news is awful, and I feel for Wheels and his family, but they’re not going to cancel games on us. We gotta keep playing.”

Philadelphia outscored Seattle 29 to 13. The Mariners, like the Phillies, are known for their great starting rotation. Their starters, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo, combined to give up 13 earned runs in 11 innings.

It’s hard to point out anything the Phillies didn’t do well. Before the five-run seventh inning on Wednesday, the Phillies left 11 men on base and had only a one-run lead. But you can forget about that after the team scores eight runs in the final two innings.

Orion Kerkering and Jordan Romano did not pitch well out of the bullpen, but José Alvarado looked electric in his first game back from suspension and Jhoan Duran continues to make it look easy in the ninth inning.

It was a thorough beatdown, and the numbers prove it.

Trea Turner, Hit Machine

Phillies shortstop Trea Turner went a casual 5-for-6 in Wednesday’s 11-2 victory. He has a double-digit hit streak for the 19th time in his major league career. In that 10-game span, Turner is 24-for-46 (.522) with five extra-base hits. He is the first Phillie since Pete Rose in 1979 to have 24 hits in 10 games.

“It feels like he’s gotten three hits a game for the last three weeks,” Bryson Stott said.

Turner’s season batting average is back above .300 for the first time since July 5. Turner has finished as high as fifth in National League MVP voting in his career. If his production at the plate remains steady and the defense at shortstop continues to be elite, he should be in the conversation for a top-five finish. At the very least, Turner should receive some down-ballot recognition.

“I feel like I’ve been hitting a lot of line drives, getting some cheap hits here and there, but still driving the ball and just having good at-bats,” Turner said.

The Rest of the Team, Also a Hit Machine

Everybody hits. The Phillies combined for 48 hits across three games against the M’s. They had 21 hits on Monday and 20 on Wednesday. According to The Athletic’s Jayson Stark, it’s the only time in the modern era that a Phillies team combined for 20 hits in multiple games of a series. Per the Phillies, it’s the first time since 2007 the team has 48 hits and 29 runs in a three-game span since July 8-14, 2007. In the final game of that stretch, Aaron Rowand went 4-for-4 with three doubles, a home run and a hit by pitch in a 10-4 Phillies win over St. Louis.

Here is who led the way in hits over the three-game series:

• Turner: 10
• Schwarber: 6
• Realmuto: 6
• Stott: 6
• Harper: 5
• Kepler: 5

The top guys and the “bottom feeders” are also producing. The 7-8-9 batters in the Phillies lineup combined to go 15-for-38 (.395) across all three games. Eleven of those hits came from Max Kepler and Stott. Kepler, who is part of the Phillies’ “outfield rotation,” is making a case for more playing time. He recorded three hits in a game on Wednesday for the first time since April 26.

Stott, whose season OPS has risen from .626 to .690 in just under a month, is essentially functioning as a second leadoff hitter in the No. 9 spot.

“Doing that in three games against those arms, they’re really good arms,” Stott said. “It just shows you that we can do it and we need to have the confidence that we can do it.”

Double Digit Trio

The Mariners lineup was no match for the top three lefties in the Phillies rotation. Ranger Suárez, Cristopher Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo combined to strike out 34 batters in 19 innings. According to the Phillies PR staff, it’s the first time in the modern era that a Phillies team had all three starters record at least 10 strikeouts in a game over a three-game series. The 34 strikeouts across three games from the starting staff is the most in Phillies franchise history.

The club’s World Series hopes took a hit with the Wheeler news, but the rotation, especially if the three lefties are clicking and Aaron Nola improves, has enough depth to still be the best unit in October.

Sánchez is the ace, but Luzardo and Suárez and more than capable Game 2 starters if they can carry their current form into October.

“I think we all bring something different to the table,” Luzardo said. “Obviously, our stuff it a little bit different, the way we attack guys is a little bit different, the way the stuff plays. I think with three lefties, teams take a certain approach and kind of start getting a feel for it. Like I said, we do a good job of kind of mixing and matching and piecing things together to the point where it’s always a different look, even though it’s from the left side.”

Schwarbarian Subplot

Kyle Schwarber is one of just four Phillies to hit 45 home runs in a single season. The other three? Jim Thome (2003), Mike Schmidt (1979 to 1980) and Ryan Howard (2006 to 2009). Schmidt, Howard and Schwarber are the only Phillies to do it multiple times, while Schwarber and Howard have done it three times. Schwarber secured his third 45-homer season with the Phillies on Wednesday with a two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth.

Schwarber has homered in 15 straight series, a Phillies franchise record. Of the 41 series played by the Phillies this season, Schwarber has at least one home run in all but nine of them.

The Phillies DH has also set a new career high in RBIs at 109. There are still 35 games left. He doesn’t have enough time to break Chuck Klein’s franchise record of 170 RBIs in 1930, but he has a chance to eclipse Howard, who drove in 149 runs in his MVP season in 2006. He does have some catching up to do. Through 127 games in ’06, Howard had 122 RBIs.

But Schwarber’s production in the series was more of a footnote than anything else, something we haven’t really been able to say all season.

Leftovers

• The Phillies had at least one runner in scoring position in all eight innings in Wednesday’s 11-2 win.
• What makes Sánchez an ace? It’s the consistency of his changeup. He has recorded 214 whiffs on his changeup this season. Tarik Skubal is just ahead of him at 216. The next best swing-and-miss changeup in the league belongs to Tyler Anderson, who has recorded 149 whiffs on the pitch. Sánchez’s 105 strikeouts on changeups is the most in baseball ahead of Skubal, who has 93.
• Luzardo’s only run allowed on Wednesday came on an absolutely absurd home run from Julio Rodriguez in the first inning. The slider Rodriguez pulled into the left field seats was .71 feet off the ground. It’s the fourth-lowest pitch anyone has ever hit for a home run in the pitch tracking era (since 2008). “I was on the mound saying ‘How did that go out?'” Luzardo said.
• Perhaps the most impressive half inning in the series for the Phillies came on Tuesday in the bottom of the third. The lineup scored two runs on two hits, walked twice, stole three bases and recorded a sacrifice fly. Stott led off with a walk, stole second and advanced to third on a Turner single. The Phillies shortstop easily stole second without a throw against Miller, who is slow to the plate. Schwarber grounded out with the infield in, but Harper drove in Stott on a sacrifice fly and J.T. Realmuto drove Turner in with a single. For those who say the Phillies are incapable of playing small ball, that inning was for you.
• The Big Dumper was the Big Slumper. The Phillies held Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, the major league leader in home runs, to just one hit in 12 at-bats.