A thrilling come from behind walk-off capped by a Jean Segura home run on Thursday finished off a much needed series sweep of the NL East rival New York Mets for the Phillies.
Coming off a devastating seven-game losing streak in which the team was not scoring runs, the Phillies ripped Mets pitching extremely well all series long.
Three numbers:
Three: Home runs for Maikel Franco
Whether or not Franco is the answer at third base for the Phils for the rest of this season as we await Alec Bohm, he certainly showed up big in this series. Franco went 6-15, delivering his most important of those three home runs on Thursday to tie the game up in the bottom of the ninth.
31: Runs scored by the Phillies offense in the series
During that seven-game losing streak, the Phillies struggled greatly to produce runs. They scored 15 during those seven games, and were overall one of the weakest hitting teams in all of baseball during June. Facing one of the leagues’ worst bullpens in the Mets relief crew helped them to turn that around.
Four: Phillies comebacks
It’s hard to quantify the idea of playing with a chip on your shoulder, but the Phillies showed that they wanted every win one of the four wins which the club grinded out in this series. The Mets had leads of 6-5, 5-2, 4-0, and 3-1 in the four games, but the Phillies were able to battle back late and take each game.
The last time the Phillies swept the Mets in a four-game series was all the way back in August of 2007 in what was infamously a huge momentum changing series for a division-winning team. While the context for this one is different than it was in 2007, it shares the potential of becoming a significant turning point in a season that was beginning to look lost.