J.T. Realmuto’s grand slam powers Phillies past Braves after two blowout losses
The catcher provided the Phillies with the cushion they would need when Aaron Nola stumbled in the seventh inning.
It had been just two innings since the Phillies last left the bases loaded on Sunday afternoon when they fell within a strike of doing it yet again.
They were clinging to a two-run lead in the fifth inning of a 9-4 win over the Braves and another squandered chance felt like one that would do them in. The Phillies had been embarrassed the last two nights. A third straight loss had to be avoided.
But Bryce Harper struck out, Rhys Hoskins popped up, and J.T. Realmuto had a full count with two outs and the bases loaded. Two innings earlier, Realmuto ended a bases-loaded rally with a fly out. This time, Realmuto’s fly ball traveled a bit farther.
Realmuto blasted a grand slam, giving the Phillies a six-run lead and providing the cushion they would need when Aaron Nola stumbled in the seventh inning. It was enough to not only salvage a rally, but prevented a disappointing weekend from being a colossal failure.
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The Phillies, despite losing the first two games by a combined 15 runs, still find themselves in the thick of a crowded National League wild-card race. They trail Atlanta by 6½ in the division. There are six teams within three games for the wild card and the front office must decide by Wednesday’s trade deadline if it thinks this team can make a run over the season’s final two months.
“All our goals that we set at the start of the season are still here. We’re one game out of a playoff spot right now with two months to go in the season. It just takes one run,” Realmuto said. We’re five, six, seven behind the Braves – whatever it is. That’s a one-week stretch where we get really hot. Obviously, we feel like we’ve got the team here to really do something special. We’ve just got to put it together."
It is days like Sunday that could make the front office believe the Phillies can be the team they dreamed they would be when they left spring training. The Phillies, a lineup built to mash opposing pitchers, had their first four-homer game in six weeks. Harper hit a first-pitch homer in the first, Hoskins hit a two-run homer in the seventh, and Adam Haseley homered for the second time in eight games.
The Phillies have a .810 winning percentage at home this season when they hit more than one home run. In a season where homers on spiking around baseball, that should be an easy task for a bulked-up lineup in a hitter-friendly ballpark. But the Phillies have hit multiple homers in just 39 percent (21 of 54) home games this season.
“You can always get better, always be better,” Harper said of the team’s struggles to hit homers. “I think a lot of us don’t really think about it. We just try to go out and put bat on ball and hopefully good things will happen. I feel like it’s the first day the wind hasn’t blown in. The weather was good. Hot. Dry. Really muggy today and it helped us out.”
The lineup hit and Nola, the pitcher pegged to anchor an uncertain rotation, breezed through the first six innings of Sunday like the ace the team hoped he would be. He struck out four of the first six batters he faced and finished with eight strikeouts. He stumbled in the seventh, allowed back-to-back homers, and brought the Braves within two runs.
“We’ve got a great group here," Nola said. “We’re not out of it. We don’t believe we’re out of it by any means. Like I was saying, anything can happen. We can go on a great run. So we’re still going to go out and compete.”
With the way the lineup produced on Sunday, Nola’s late stumble was OK. The Phillies will play one more game before Wednesday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline. Nola can only pitch every fifth day and the Phillies must find at least one more starting pitcher before the deadline if they want to compete for a wild-card berth.
Reaching the postseason, after a weekend that started with two brutal defeats, still feels like a tall task. The Phillies, as witnessed in the season’s first 105 games, have more flaws than they could have imagined when they left Clearwater, Fla. But as Realmuto emptied the bases in the fifth inning, it was easy to be reminded of what this team can be.
“It’ll tell us where the front office stands and what they see this team doing. Even if something happens, it’s up to the guys in this clubhouse to make it happen,” Realmuto said. “I don’t think the front office needed too much convincing, one way or the other. One game out of the wild card spot is a team that should push for the playoffs, in my opinion. The guys we have in this locker room, we feel we can do it already, but obviously a little help wouldn’t hurt.”
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