Categories: 2022 Postgame RecapsNews

Jean Segura’s roller-coaster game highlights Phillies’ huge Game 3 win

Jean Segura had an eventual Game 3. (Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire)

Final score: Phillies 4, Padres 2

Jean Segura started his night with a biff. Then, he drove in two runs, got picked off, made a diving play, stumbled, made another diving play — and ended the night two wins from the World Series.

It was a roller coaster night for Segura. That adjective would be too generous for the Phillies’ defense at large. But thanks to a bounceback performance from Ranger Suárez, a leadoff bomb, some timely two-out hitting and a strong bullpen showing, the Phillies overcome those miscues to edge out the Padres in a pivotal Game 3 of the NLCS.

The bullpen emptied all its best bullets. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been as close as it was. But Rob Thomson, the Phillies and their fans will take it.

They lead the series 2-1.

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Things started off quite perfectly for the Phillies, with Suárez firing a 1-2-3 first and Kyle Schwarber leading off with a homer.

But the Phillies squandered an opportunity to pile on. 22 pitches into Musgrove’s night, the Phillies had runners on first and second with a run in and no outs. 24 pitches in, and the inning was over: Bryce Harper grounded into a double play and Nick Castellanos grounded out to end the frame.

They squandered another in the fourth, this time on defense. A Juan Soto hit by pitch and Brandon Drury single had runners on the corners with one out, and Suárez rolled a double play ball from Jake Cronenworth.

Unfortunately for the Phillies, a rough night on defense began right then. Jean Segura flat-out dropped Bryson Stott’s feed at second, and a run scored.

Segura’s redemption came in the fifth — and so did a bat spike reminiscent of Rhys Hoskins’ in Game 3 of the NLDS. Segura’s 76.1-mph two-out single floated just over Cronenworth’s head, scoring Alec Bohm and Stott for a 3-1 Phillies lead (before his wild game continued with a pickoff).

More shoddy defense for the Phillies continued in the fifth. Hoskins botched a chopper that would’ve been the first out and instead put Trent Grisham on second to lead off the inning. Grisham soon scored on a Ha-Seong Kim groundout.

In for Suárez, Zach Eflin ran into some trouble in the sixth, thanks to a Cronenworth single that got past a stumbling Segura. But Eflin rolled a grounder from Josh Bell, and this time, Segura made the play, starting off a 4-6-3 double play that kept the Phillies up.

Castellanos, who swung at the first pitch each of his first two at bats, took an 0-0 offering in the bottom of the sixth — and the baseball gods rewarded him with a double soon after. It was the first of two straight two-out two-baggers, as Bohm scored Castellanos and knocked Musgrove out of the game with a 4-2 Phillies lead.

The spotlight found Segura again in the seventh. José Alvarado induced a Kim grounder that looked like it would put runners on the corners with two outs, but in almost a carbon copy of his diving snag earlier, Segura came up big.

Alvarado allowed a leadoff single to Soto in the eighth, then gave the ball to Seranthony Domínguez, who got all three outs in the inning and kept the Phillies up two.

But it cost him 18 pitches. The plan if Domínguez ran into trouble in the ninth was anyone’s guess. A Josh Bell leadoff single made it even dicier.

But Domínguez got Jurickson Profar (on a controversial full-count swing appeal), Trent Grisham and Austin Nola to end it.

Shibe Vintage Sports Starting Pitching Performance

In a bounceback from Game 1 of the NLDS, Suárez allowed just two runs in five innings — and though one was earned, it perhaps could’ve been zero with a tighter Phillies defense. One of many encouraging signs for the southpaw: He walked zero after issuing five free passes his last outing. At just 68 pitches, Suárez could be a candidate to come back on three days’ rest in Game 7, if the series gets that far.

Joe Musgrove had looked unflappable all postseason — until Friday. It wasn’t the Phils’ six-run output they had against him in June, but it was close: They got him for four runs in 4 2/3 innings in Game 3. Musgrove worked out of jams in a few innings, but a pair of two-out knocks in other innings gave the Phillies three of their four runs against the righty.

Phillies Nugget Of The Game

Prior to Friday …

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