Alec Bohm ties Chase Utley for Phillies franchise bases-loaded HBP record

PHILADELPHIA — Alec Bohm walked off the field with third-base coach Dusty Wathan at the end of the sixth inning on Sunday afternoon and joked about his fortune with the bases loaded. Maybe it’s good fortune, or maybe it’s bad fortune. It all depends on how you look at it.

For yet another time, Bohm stepped to the plate with three runners on and found himself getting plunked. The third baseman drove in the Phillies’ first run in their 8-3 loss to the Rangers by wearing a Mackenzie Gore fastball on the left shoulder. It was the fifth bases-loaded hit-by-pitch he’s taken during the regular season in his career.

“Dude,” Bohm told Wathan, “I gotta have the franchise record for most RBIs on a hit-by-pitch.”

His hunch was correct.

According to the Phillies, Bohm tied Chase Utley for the franchise record in this particular stat on Sunday. That’s pretty remarkable, considering Utley, a savant at getting beaned, played 13 seasons in Philadelphia and was pegged 173 times in that span. Entering Monday, Bohm had just started his seventh season with the Phillies and had only 25 hit-by-pitches.

If you lump in Bohm’s memorable bases-loaded hit-by-pitch from the opening game of the 2022 postseason in St. Louis, the 29-year-old actually stands alone with the most RBI HBPs drawn in a Phillies uniform.

So why does this keep happening? Bohm seriously has no clue.

“I think it’s one of those unexplainable things,” Bohm said. “Just, like, weird baseball stuff.”

Bohm said that the natural human reaction is to dodge the pitch, even if the hitter knows it would score a run. But sometimes, it just comes in too hot. On Sunday, Gore’s 95 mph heater from the left side ran up and in to the right-hander batter. “There was really no getting out of the way,” Bohm said.

Sure, it might hurt. But there’s enough of a reward when the bases are loaded to make up for it. Just ask Bohm, who knows better than any other Phillie since at least 1910.

“Any way you can get them,” Bohm said. “It’s an RBI.”