Brandon Marsh hits two home runs to help Phillies to another June win

CHICAGO — Last week, Rob Thomson said the Phillies planned to turn center field into “more of a platoon.” But they faced a righty starter in six consecutive games since then, so the manager kept writing Brandon Marsh’s name in the lineup.

And Marsh hasn’t stopped hitting.

So much for being Wally Pipp’d by center-field challenger Cristian Pache. Marsh continued his weeklong tear by crushing two home runs through the wildfire smoke at Wrigley Field on Tuesday night and joined lights-out lefty Ranger Suárez in carrying the Phillies to a series-opening 5-1 drubbing of the Cubs.

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“Having righty after righty after righty definitely gives a guy like myself, being a lefty, just more time to lock it back in,” Marsh said after the Phillies won for the 16th time in 21 games. “But to be honest, I didn’t even think about [the string of righties] until you just said it. It kind of just happened randomly, subconsciously. But that was a lot of fun tonight.”

Clearly, though, Marsh isn’t interested in a timeshare. With Pache, every bit the touted prospect that Marsh once was, nipping at his heels, he smashed a cutter from Cubs starter Jameson Taillon to right-center field in the second inning, then turned on a Taillon curveball for a two-run shot in the fifth.

Since Thomson used the ‘P’ word, Marsh has gone 12-for-20 and hiked his batting line from .252/.340/.413 to .283/.363/.469.

“I don’t know what it was, but all of a sudden, his swing got better and he started hitting the ball the other way and turning on balls he was supposed to turn on,” Thomson said. “He’s got a little bit of confidence now. It’s good for him.”

Marsh’s hot streak was preceded by a 6-for-43, 25-strikeout cold spell. Before that, he had been 12-for-33, and before that, 4-for-41.

Space Mountain has nothing on Marsh’s highs and lows.

“Everyone’s going to go through some good patches and rough patches. It’s just the course of the season,” Marsh said. “The key is just to try to ride the high out as long as you can.”

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Thomson was always inclined to use Marsh against right-handed pitchers. But the Phillies wanted to turn him loose against lefties, too, this season, and after getting off to a good start against them, he has struggled. Maybe it’ll happen again.

Pache has demonstrated improvement at the plate since the Phillies acquired him on the eve of opening day from the Athletics. He returned this month from minor knee surgery and was a catalyst on the bases and with his typically stellar defense during a recent series in Oakland.

It made sense, then, to consider a platoon. But even if Thomson wanted to give Pache a start over the last week, Marsh made it impossible.

Thomson, as usual, credited hitting coach Kevin Long for helping Marsh to make positive changes. The central theme: Be aggressive in the strike zone, and don’t chase bad pitches.

“It’s easy to say, hard to do. But that’s what he’s doing,” Thomson said. “I don’t think there’s much of a swing change or anything like that. He’s swinging at the proper pitches.”

Take, for instance, the first home run against Taillon. After getting ahead in the count, Taillon tried to get Marsh to chase a high-and-outside fastball. When he laid off, Taillon tried to bury a cutter inside. Marsh pulled in his hands, turned on the ball, and drove it out to the Wrigley bleachers.

Marsh calls it “strength of zone,” laying off pitches until you get one in a spot you can handle.

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“It’s just being aggressive in a part of the zone that you’re looking at,” Marsh said. “When you see something there, you go. You just trust your eyes and your brain and let your body do the work. Be the aggressor. Also, just try to control the at-bat and not have the at-bat control me. I lost that a little bit, for sure.”

The Phillies will finally face a lefty (Drew Smyly) on Wednesday. Before the two homers, Thomson indicated Marsh probably would sit in favor of Pache.

And now?

“I haven’t talked to him yet,” Thomson said, smiling.

If Marsh continues to slug, there won’t be many more days off.

Suárez posted his sixth consecutive stellar start, holding the Cubs to four hits and recording an out in the eighth inning for the first time since June 23 of last season.

In his last half-dozen starts, Suárez has allowed six runs in 40 innings for a 1.35 ERA.

As usual, Suárez led with his sinker and got weak contact, including seven groundball outs. But he continued to mix in his secondary pitches. This time, it was his cutter and change-up, more than his emerging curveball, that kept the Cubs off balance.

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“Definitely I wanted to mix my pitches today,” Suárez said through a team interpreter. “I don’t want to go into an outing just to throw a bunch of curveballs and very few change-ups. I want to mix and match there because I don’t want to become predictable.”

Said catcher Garrett Stubbs: “That’s the luxury that we have with Ranger right now. Depending on who we’re facing, we have the ability to use different pitches. Everything’s moving in all sorts of directions.”

Smoke from the Canadian wildfires, which coated Philadelphia a few weeks ago, arrived in Chicago and cast doubt over whether the game would be played.

The air-quality index was hovering around 200 — commonly classified as “unhealthy.” But MLB and the Players’ Association met hourly to discuss the situation and agreed it wasn’t unsafe.

“You’ve just got to trust that it’s safe out there,” Thomson said. “You make sure you’re reminding guys to go inside every once in a while, get a breath of fresh air, keep hydrated. I didn’t hear anybody complain. I didn’t think anybody was affected by it.”

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Bryce Harper finished 0-for-4 and stretched his careerlong homerless streak reached 26 games and 118 plate appearances.

Harper appeared frustrated in the fifth inning when he grounded out with a runner on third base and two out. Pitchers have been attacking him with breaking balls, and he struck out on a curveball from Taillon in the fourth.