Phillies score six in the ninth to beat Cardinals 6-3 in Game 1 of their wild-card series
Blanked for eight innings, the Phillies erupted in the ninth and need a win Saturday to advance to the NLDs.
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ST. LOUIS — Jean Segura wasn’t even halfway to first base when he leaped in the air, his left leg pointing forward, his right leg angling back, looking more like a ballet dancer than a second baseman.
This was pure joy — 11 years and 5,195 at-bats in the making.
If you’re going to wait that long to make the playoffs, you might as well be emphatic in announcing your presence. So, with the bases loaded and the Phillies down to their final two outs Friday, on the 11th anniversary of their last playoff game, Segura punched a two-run single through the right side to give them a lead.
It was all part of a six-run ninth inning against St. Louis Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley in a 6-3 victory that pulled the Phillies from the brink of a Game 1 loss in the best-of-three National League wild-card series to the threshold of the divisional round.
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One more win, and the Phillies will face this pinch-me reality: A trip to Atlanta for a rematch with the defending World Series champion Braves in a best-of-five series that will bring the playoffs back to Citizens Bank Park for the first time since 2011.
No wonder Segura jumped like Baryshnikov.
“It’s a lot of adrenaline in my body, just like when you give a little kid a toy and they’re just jumping around and happiness,” Segura said. “It’s such a great feeling when you go through a situation like that, especially in the postseason. That’s why you play the game. That’s why you become a big-leaguer. Because I think when you come through in those type of moments, people and the fans are going to remember you forever.”
Years from now, Phillies fans will talk about the time when Segura reached out, dropped his bat on a 2-2 slider from Helsley, and shot it to right field. It chased home Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos, gave the Phillies a 3-2 lead, and stunned the sellout crowd of 45,911 at Busch Stadium.
It was vintage Segura. Often overlooked in a Phillies lineup known for its sluggers, Segura is a contact hitter. He’s known for putting the bat to the ball. In the moment, it was exactly what the Phillies needed.
“That’s Jean. He can hit anything,” said Alec Bohm, who got hit on the left shoulder by a 101-mph Helsley fastball to force in a run and bring up Segura. “He’s the hit machine. Nobody we’d rather have up at the plate.”
The symbolism was unavoidable. Until this week, when the Phillies ended their playoff drought, Segura was baseball’s active leader in games played (1,328) without making the playoffs.
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“I was ready today,” Segura said. “I woke up at 7 o’clock a.m. with adrenaline in my body knowing that I am going to play a postseason game today. I was mentally focused on every play, every pitch prepared.”
Zack Wheeler was a playoff novice, too. On the eve of the series, the Phillies ace anticipated feeling the natural nervousness that comes with a first career postseason start. But he couldn’t have channeled it much better, with 13 of his 17 first-inning pitches clocking in at 97 mph or faster.
Wheeler dazzled for 6⅓ innings, just as the Phillies drew it up when they planned his return from the injured list last month. They looked at the schedule, counted the days, and charted a course for him to start Game 1. It marked their surest path to advancing.
But there was another part of the plan. They needed to get a lead for Wheeler.
It didn’t happen. And after Wheeler turned over a scoreless game to lefty reliever José Alvarado, Cardinals pinch-hitter Juan Yepez sneaked a two-run homer inside the left-field foul pole, a blow that looked for a while like it may be decisive.
Alvarado hadn’t given up a run since Aug. 23, a span of 13⅔ innings. He hadn’t allowed a homer since July 30. But after issuing a two-out walk and hanging a first-pitch cutter to Yepez, it seemed like it would be another chapter in the book of bad things that have happened to the Phillies on Oct. 7, perhaps the darkest day on the calendar in their 140-year history.
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In 1977, the Phillies gave up three runs in the ninth inning of a Game 3 crusher against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Championship Series, a loss that became known as “Black Friday.”
A year later, they were eliminated by the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLCS.
In 2011, the Phillies’ last trip to the playoffs, Ryan Howard clutched his left leg and collapsed on the first-base line after blowing out his Achilles on the final out of an elimination game against the Cardinals.
With the ninth-inning rally — which began with J.T. Realmuto’s one-out single and featured two walks, the hit by pitch, Segura’s single, a smooth slide into home plate by Edmundo Sosa on a fielder’s choice, an RBI single by Brandon Marsh, and a Kyle Schwarber sacrifice fly — the Phillies reaffirmed their resilience.
They may also have chased away a few ghosts.
“That’s just kind of who we are. It’s what we’re built on,” Bohm said. “It’s the city. It’s Philadelphia. It’s our team. We don’t quit.”
Indeed, the Phillies authored similar comebacks during the season. There was Harper’s grand slam and Bryson Stott’s three-run homer in a walk-off victory over the Los Angeles Angels on June 5. A few days later, Bohm and Matt Vierling homered in the ninth inning in Milwaukee and then-Brewers closer Josh Hader. They came back to beat presumptive NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara on Sept. 13.
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But this may have been the most improbable. It certainly was the most important.
“Once we got a guy on, you could kind of feel it rumbling a little bit,” Rhys Hoskins said. “Continue to believe and good things happen. We’d rather be leading going into the ninth, but there’s a belief in the dugout that we’re never out.”
This time, it happened to be Segura who delivered.
“Jean’s been waiting so long to get in a playoff game, and he comes through with that base hit at a very big time,” Wheeler said. “That was very fun to watch.”