Bryce Harper’s single helps Phillies top Cubs, 3-1, to sweep series

June continues to shine on the Phillies, who swept their series against the Cubs, even though Harper is still without a homer in the month.

Phillies starter Taijuan Walker scattered six hits and allowed one run in six innings.Read moreCharles Rex Arbogast / AP

by Scott Lauber

Published June 29, 2023, 10:39 p.m. ET

CHICAGO — It wasn’t a home run. But it didn’t matter.

There have been times over the last month when the Phillies would have preferred for Bryce Harper to crush a ball over the fence. But in the third inning Thursday night, with two out and two runners in scoring position, they needed him only to put the ball in play.

So, Harper stayed back on a change-up from Cubs offspeed artist Kyle Hendricks and stroked a one-hopper past a diving defender for a tiebreaking two-run single.

Nothing more, nothing less. Just perfect.

It held up as the decisive blow, too, in a 3-1 victory that gave the Phillies their first sweep at Wrigley Field since July 24-26, 2015, a series highlighted by Cole Hamels’ no-hitter. It also marked their ninth straight road victory, their longest streak since May 1984.

“We’re playing great baseball right now,” Harper said after Taijuan Walker delivered another six-inning gem, his fifth consecutive lights-out start. “Any time I get out there and help this club win, I’m happy with that. We’re really a good team. Really happy with the way we’re playing right now.”

Never mind, then, that Harper’s homerless spell reached 28 games and 126 plate appearances. It’s the longest power outage of his career. And based on his body language after long flyouts to the warning track or feeble swings at the increasing number of breaking balls he has been seeing, he appears to be frustrated.

“I don’t think ‘frustrating,’” Harper said. “It might look like that. But I think more for me is just being able to be on the field, right? Just being able to be out there, good or bad. I’m still not supposed to be back yet. I’m thankful for the opportunities.”

Leave it to Harper to express gratitude for his struggles. It’s a reasonable perspective, though, given that he came back from Tommy John elbow surgery 2½ months before the Phillies’ initial “by the All-Star break” projection.

So, the Phillies will accept Harper’s first two-RBI hit since a two-run single June 13 in Arizona in whatever form it takes and hope it leads to the bunches of home runs that they’re expecting in the second half of the season.

“I hope so,” manager Rob Thomson said. “He lofted that ball to center field [Wednesday] night. When hitters are going through a tough time, they start lofting balls to center field, I feel like their swing is getting very close. That two-out, two-RBI base hit was huge for us.”

It held up because Walker was stellar again. He overcame a pair of dropped fly balls by Kyle Schwarber on the left field warning track in the fifth inning and Brandon Marsh in medium-depth center field in the sixth. In the outfield version of the double-doink, the ball clanked off their mitts and fell for hits.

Schwarber’s miscue, in particular, could’ve proven costly because it put the leadoff man on second base. Walker gave up a single, but retired Christopher Morel on a sacrifice bunt and Ian Happ on a lineout, then froze Dansby Swanson with a high-and-tight splitter.

“The Cubs are a scrappy team; they put the ball in play, and they just do anything they can to get runs,” Walker said of Morel’s bunt. “Honestly, any time they bunt, I like it. Because I feel like I have a good chance of getting them out. Thanks, guys.”

Walker doesn’t need the help. In his last five starts, he has allowed a total of three earned runs in 32 innings for a 0.84 ERA.

It all made Harper’s two-out single loom even larger.

Who needs home runs?

“We’re just finding ways to win right now,” J.T. Realmuto said. “It’s good to see out of this group. We don’t feel like we’ve caught our stride offensively. I don’t think that’s any secret. We’re not swinging the bats as well as we can. But our starting pitching’s throwing the ball so well, our bullpen’s closing games out, we’re just getting a couple-run lead and right now we feel comfortable with that.”

Get ‘Real’

Realmuto made a highlight-reel play in the ninth inning that made Harper think of one of the signature moments in Phillies history.

With one out, Nick Madrigal hit a soft roller about 55 feet up the first-base line. Realmuto raced from behind the plate, barehanded the ball, and flipped it underhand to first base.

“It was incredible,” Harper said. “It kind of reminded me of Chooch in the no-hitter in the postseason, right?”

Harper was referring to Carlos Ruiz’s play on Brandon Phillips’ tapper in front of the plate to end Roy Halladay’s no-hitter in Game 1 of the 2010 NL Division Series.

“I don’t know,” Realmuto said. “I saw the swing and the trajectory of the ball and tried to get there as fast as I can. The whole time I was running, I was planning on grabbing it and sidearm-throwing it. But by the time I got to the ball, I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m so close to the base,’ I just underhand flipped it.”

Said closer Craig Kimbrel: “Not too many times you say, ‘Wow’ in the middle of a play.”

Case closed

Don’t look now, but Kimbrel has emerged as the Phillies’ closer. He improved to 12-for-12 in save opportunities.

“Right now, he’s the guy,” Thomson said. “There might be a time where we face a lineup that, the pockets are so strong one way or the other that he pitches the eighth and [Gregory] Soto or [Jose] Alvarado pitches the ninth. But we haven’t seen that. He’s been really good.”

It’s still June

In the second-to-last game of his favorite month, Schwarber lined an 87-mph, first-pitch fastball over the ivy in right field against Hendricks, his teammate with the hex-busting 2016 Cubs. It was Schwarber’s fifth leadoff homer of the season.

Unsurprisingly, they have all come in June.

Over the last three seasons, Schwarber has 36 homers in 79 games in June. This year, his Babe Ruth impression has been slightly less pronounced. Schwarber is slugging only .535 with eight homers compared to .760 with 16 homers in 2021 and .680 with 12 homers last June.