Funky Friday: Phillies open four-game set with San Francisco with a win
Trea Turner scored from second on a walk, and Aaron Nola had four walks in an inning. Strange stuff, but the Phillies won anyway.
Aaron Nola needed 46 pitches to get through the second inning, the most pitches he’s ever thrown in a single inning, but he surrendered just two runs on the night. San Francisco Giants starting catcher Patrick Bailey left the game in the second inning with blurred vision. Phillies shortstop Trea Turner scored from second base on a Bryce Harper walk before leaving the game with a sore hamstring. Center fielder Johan Rojas briefly went down after getting hit below the belt while having catch with a bullpen catcher before an inning — but remained in the game. A crowd of 40,888 had a pretty good wave going during the seventh inning of a one-run game.
It was the third time the Phillies wore their blue and yellow City Connect uniforms, which they will wear during Friday night home games, and the last time they wore them, two weeks ago, Spencer Turnbull took a no-hit bid into the seventh inning.
Maybe funky Friday nights will be a thing this summer at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies will take it, as long as they all end like this one: a 4-3 win to kick off a four-game series with the Giants.
“It was a little bit different,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “I looked up at the clock and we’d played four and half innings in two hours and we haven’t seen that for a while.”
The Phillies, who lead MLB in wins (22), have won seven of their last eight games and 14 of their last 17.
» READ MORE: Phillies’ rotation resolution ‘as difficult of a decision as I’ve had to make,’ Rob Thomson says
The funkiness on Friday didn’t apply to everything. Alec Bohm’s hitting streak reached 16 games when he kicked off the Phillies’ scoring with an RBI single during a three-run third inning that also featured a two-run Brandon Marsh single. The back end of the Phillies’ bullpen largely continued its dominance, too. Orion Kerkering stumbled a bit, allowing his first earned run of the season while giving up three hits in the seventh. But Jeff Hoffman, who struck out the side in the eighth, and José Alvarado held the Phillies’ lead in the final two frames.
There was nothing normal, however, with Nola’s second inning, when he beat his previous high for pitches thrown in an inning by eight. Nola walked two to start the inning before Thairo Estrada’s two-run double gave San Francisco an early 2-0 lead. Nola later walked LaMonte Wade Jr. — his fourth free pass of the inning — on his 41st pitch of the frame to load the bases for Jorge Soler, and it was fair to wonder if Nola would survive the frame. But Nola got Soler, who Thomson said would have been his last batter, to pop out to catcher J.T. Realmuto in foul territory to escape trouble.
“I have to go look back, I feel like some of my misses weren’t that bad,” Nola said.
“Four walks in an inning is pretty brutal for me.”
It perhaps was yet another example of why a six-man rotation won’t work for this team. Nola hadn’t pitched in a game since last Friday, and while Thomson said pregame Friday that Nola and Zack Wheeler “just needed that extra day this time through,” it was clear in the last two starts from the Phillies’ aces that they perform at their best when they’re in their normal routines.
Nola said he might have been impacted by the rust, but it was “not really an excuse to not go deep.”
He was at 55 pitches through two innings and needed another 20 to get through the third. He got through the fourth in order, striking out the final two batters he faced, but Thomson pulled him after 89 pitches (57 strikes). Nola allowed two runs on four hits. He walked four and struck out four.
“He just kept grinding,” Thomson said. “He’s tough. He’s a grinder. He took one for the team tonight.”
Matt Strahm and Seranthony Domínguez pitched scoreless fifth and sixth innings, respectively. They were staked an insurance run in the fourth after Turner hit a two-out single and then stole second. Then, after Giants backup catcher Tom Murphy dropped a pitch from starter Jordan Hicks, the ball got away, and Murphy was a little lackadaisical going after it, allowing Turner to advance to third and then home, but it came with a price. A few steps from home plate, Turner injured his left hamstring.
The extent of the injury is unclear, and the Phillies will know more Saturday.
“They seemed pretty positive in the training room … or at least more positive than what I thought,” Turner said.
“I hate being hurt and I promise you it’s not going to be fun for the training staff because I just wear them out. They’ll want me on the field more than I want to be on the field.”
“It won us the ball game,” Thomson said of the play.
The moment capped off a funky four innings. The rest of the night went relatively normal. Right now, normal for the Phillies typically means a win.