CHICAGO — The Phillies hadn’t homered in five days and knew it would be extremely difficult for either team to hit one out of Wrigley Field on Saturday afternoon.
It was 47 degrees at first pitch and the wind was blowing in 15-20 mph from left field, making it even more important for both lineups to focus on passing the baton. The Phillies finally did, rallying for six runs in the fourth inning and three in the sixth of a 10-4 win over the Cubs.
“It might take a bloop hit at some point and then it kind of just explodes,” manager Rob Thomson said Friday evening after the Phillies’ losing streak reached five.
Those words were prescient because it was Max Kepler’s bloop into no-man’s land in shallow left field that scored the Phillies’ first run Saturday and reloaded the bases ahead of an Alec Bohm RBI single, Johan Rojas sacrifice fly, Bryson Stott RBI single and Bryce Harper two-run double.
The Phillies have put a ton of runners on base this season and have a Top 3 team OBP but the explosions have been few and far between. A big hit with men on base has eluded them since Sunday. The situational struggles have been exacerbated by them hitting just one home run in a span of 296 plate appearances before Kepler went deep in the seventh.
The fourth inning Saturday was the Phillies’ best of the season. Facing Ben Brown, the former pitching prospect they traded to Chicago for David Robertson in 2022, the Phils had five hits with a runner in scoring position, their most in any inning since last August 15 against the Nationals.
Jesus Luzardo followed with a 1-2-3 bottom half and the 14-13 Phillies won for the first time in a week.
Luzardo has exceeded all expectations through six starts with a 1.73 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. He’s kept the Phillies squarely in each game and been a godsend to a rotation that hasn’t yet had Ranger Suarez or an effective Aaron Nola.
Luzardo did not allow a hit until the bottom of the fifth, a strong performance in his first start against the Cubs since their reported decision to back out of an offseason trade for him. The Cubs had concerns about Luzardo’s back and elbow, according to The Athletic, and the Phillies swooped in to do the deal themselves.
Luzardo’s only troublesome frame was the fifth when Trea Turner committed a two-out error with nobody on base, which led to two Cubs runs and forced the lefty to throw 19 additional pitches. Turner has had a couple of rough moments in the field in this series. He whiffed on a tag at second base when J.T. Realmuto had a base-stealer out by a wide margin on Friday and committed his third error of the year in the middle game.
The shortstop did make up for it, though, with an RBI single up the middle the half-inning after his miscue. Turner crushed the ball over 104 mph in both his third and fourth at-bats, a good sign for a player who’s hitting .245 with just five extra-base hits.
Kepler also seems to be finding a rhythm at the plate. He went 3-for-5 with a solo home run to right field, the only location a ball was leaving the yard on Saturday. The left fielder is 10-for-26 (.385) with two doubles and a homer over his last seven games.
The Phillies go for the series win on Sunday Night Baseball. It should be about 10 degrees warmer at first pitch but will be another chilly night for Aaron Nola to try to find his command.
Read the full article here
