Bryce Harper leads Phillies with inside-the-park home run to 10-4 win over Giants

Monday’s 10-4 Phillies win began with a career record for Aaron Nola, but not the kind that he wanted. The Phillies starter threw a belt-high fastball to Joc Pederson, who promptly launched it into the right field stands. It was the 28th home run he’s allowed this year. Before Monday, he had never allowed more than 27 in a season.

The trouble continued in the third inning, when Nola allowed another solo shot, this time to Giants first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. It was a typical Nola outing. A few bad mistakes — that hitters capitalize on — but an otherwise good night. Despite the early damage, Nola settled in. He pitched into the seventh.

Manager Rob Thomson said it was Nola’s best outing in a while. He seemed to agree. It was the first time he’d pitched seven innings since July 23. Those two solo home runs were the only runs he allowed.

And they didn’t matter, in the end. After waiting until the ninth inning to score on Sunday night, the Phillies lineup responded right away on Monday. Trea Turner hit a one-out single and reached second on a fielding error in the first. Bryce Harper hit a two-out RBI single to drive Turner home.

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Thomson says his offense is at its best when it is scoring in multiple ways, and that is what it did on Monday. In the second inning, Bryson Stott drew a 13-pitch walk, and scored on a two-run home run hit by Edmundo Sosa in the next at-bat. Alec Bohm hit a solo home run in the third to give the Phillies a 4-2 lead.

In the fifth, Harper hit a ball to the left center field wall that Giants outfielder Wade Meckler tried to run down, then bobbled — twice — and finally threw home. His throw was not in time. Harper scored easily. It was ruled an inside-the-park home run by the official scorer, but could’ve been ruled a triple and an error. Either way, it scored a run, and injected some more energy into the ballpark.

Harper slid across home plate, looked straight into the dugout, and shrugged, with a smile on his face, a la Michael Jordan in Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals. It was the Phillies’ first inside-the-park home run since J.T. Realmuto’s in the National League Division Series.

“Just tried to bust it out of the box, and saw it was over his head,” Harper said. “After that, it hits that wall, it gets a pretty good kick. You always have a pretty good chance. So, I was thinking, ‘I don’t really like hitting triples, so you might as well try to get to home.’ And we were able to do it.”

The Phillies didn’t stop there. Bohm was hit by a pitch, Realmuto singled, and Stott doubled to score Bohm. By the seventh inning, the Phillies had a 10-2 lead, thanks also to a Johan Rojas two-run triple, and a Kyle Schwarber towering two-run home run.

Every hitter in the Phillies’ starting lineup recorded at least one hit on Monday. Six of them recorded multiple hits. The final tally was 10 runs on 16 hits, going 6-for-14 with runners in scoring position.

“It was just one of those nights,” Thomson said. “And those are the kind of nights that we’re expecting. Very similar to Saturday’s game against Washington. I thought we had good at-bats. I thought we didn’t chase much, we got a few opposite field hits, extra base hits. Just had good at-bats.”

The Giants have been using an opener for a while now, and decided to stick with Scott Alexander on Monday. Former Phillies manager — and current Giants manager — Gabe Kapler pulled Alexander after allowing one earned run in two-thirds of an inning.

Left-handed pitcher Sean Manaea entered in relief. Thomson figured the Phillies would see Manaea at some point, so he chose to shuffle the lefties in his lineup. How much that helped is unclear, but the Phillies did enter the game with some history against Manaea. The last time they faced him was in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, when he was pitching for the San Diego Padres.

Manaea gave up five earned runs through 1 1/3 of an inning that night. On Monday, he gave up three earned runs through 2 2/3 of an inning.

It was good game for the Phillies in the field, too. In the third inning, Schwarber made a nice play on a line drive hit by Pederson that hit the wall. He threw it to second base in time for Stott to tag Pederson out. Sosa made a good throw to Bohm for the final out of the inning.

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In the fourth, Johan Camargo hit a hard grounder to first base that Bohm reached on a diving catch. He flipped the ball to Nola, covering first, for the out.

After a scoreless inning from Matt Strahm in the eighth, reliever Dylan Covey was unable to lock down the game in the ninth, loading the bases on two walks and a single, and scoring a run for the Giants after he hit Camargo with a pitch. Another run scored off a Blake Sabol single in the next at-bat. But Jeff Hoffman came in relief of Covey in the ninth and induced a double play and a flyout to end the game.

The win created some more separation between the Phillies and the Giants in the National League Wild Card race. The Phillies now have a three game lead over the Giants.

“It’s a big first game of this series,” Harper said. “That’s a good team over there and we’re fighting for that one spot. And they played us pretty well when we were out in San Francisco. So, our fans showed up tonight. Which was great for us as well. I thought everybody in our lineup and our pitching came out strong, and was ready to go.”