Phillies survive late rally from Rockies to sweep series with 7-6 win

This was one of the Phillies’ best offensive nights of the season, and it almost went to waste because of a bullpen implosion.

They had a comfortable six-run lead going into the eighth inning of their eventual 7-6 win over the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Park when Gregory Soto entered the game. Soto allowed three straight singles to load the bases, a sacrifice fly, and two walks (one of which forced in a run).

Jeff Hoffman replaced him with the bases loaded and one out. He induced a groundout that scored Elias Diaz, a walk, and a two-run single by Ezequiel Tovar to bring the Rockies within one run of the Phillies.

José Alvarado came out for the ninth. He allowed one hit with one strikeout. With two outs, pinch runner Nolan Smith stole second base. The Phillies challenged the safe call, but it stood. With the tying run on second, Alvarado induced a pop out by Sean Bouchard to secure the win and a three-game series sweep.

It wasn’t pretty.

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“You have to trust him because of the stuff, but you know, it’s low-leverage there tonight,” manager Rob Thomson said of Soto. “I don’t know whether that affects him, because some guys get affected by that — you put a higher-leverage guy in a lower-leverage situation and there’s a little less adrenaline, but you still have to go out there and pitch.”

Despite the close call, there were some positive takeaways. The Phillies combined for seven runs — and those runs came throughout the lineup. Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner set the tone with back-to-back solo shots in the first inning, Schwarber added a two-run shot in the sixth, and J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, and Brandon Marsh each had one RBI. Schwarber’s first home run was the 250th of his career.

It was what you’d expect from this team in June or July, with one exception: Bryce Harper went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. He will heat up eventually, but if Turner and Schwarber continue to do what they’ve been doing, it should make his slow start less consequential.

“The at-bats by everybody … I thought we just hit the ball well in general,” said Turner. “Got some good pitches to hit and took some great swings. I feel like we’ve been working a lot on a lot of different things and tonight the offense was good.”

The Phillies had 12 hits and went 4-for-11 with runners in scoring position. Johan Rojas had a good day at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a walk. Both of his hits clocked in at 95 mph or higher. In the sixth inning, he sent a hard-hit double to center field that was just a few feet short of going out (it traveled 389 feet). In the eighth, he lined a single to right field that came off his bat at 102.3 mph.

Turner went 3-for-5 and was a triple short of the cycle. He has been on a hot streak of late, with at least one hit in each of his last seven games. He is batting .429/.448/.786 over that span with two home runs and only three strikeouts.

“Today was good,” Turner said. “I feel like the last few games, I was taking the swings I wanted maybe 50% of the time. Felt like I wasn’t totally there. And tonight felt more like I repeated my swing every single time. Got some good pitches to hit and obviously didn’t miss them. So, that’s the key when you get those pitches, to capitalize on them.”

It was a good overall showing from a lineup that has struggled to produce consistently to start the season, but the fact that the Phillies got production throughout, and not just from one or two players, was perhaps more important. That’s what they envisioned when they built this lineup: to have weapons in spots 1-9, so when a player is struggling, someone else steps up. On Wednesday night, it was Harper struggling, and he found plenty of support in his stead.

Cris Sánchez got off to a bumpy start in his fourth start of the season, but settled in quickly. The first two Rockies batters got on base, when Tovar singled and Brenton Doyle reached on an error by third baseman Bohm. Tovar scored an unearned run, but that was the extent of the damage. Sánchez finished his night after six innings, allowing five hits, one walk, and no earned runs, with a balk in the fifth inning. His 10 strikeouts matched a career-high.

“Sánchy was great tonight,” Thomson said. “A lot of strikes. Locating his fastball. Back-of-the-plate sliders that they were swinging through. Good changeup they were swinging through. A lot of swing-and-miss. Great poise. He had the balk, and he came right back, and that was good to see.”