Categories: Analysis

‘Like when you give a little kid a toy’: Friday’s heroics were 10 years in the making for Jean Segura

Jean Segura was the hero in Game 1. (Don Otto)

Jean Segura watched it get through, raised his fists and departed the earth.

He’s done “the jump” before. It’s been a go-to for go-ahead or walk-off hits of the past. Perhaps Segura simply didn’t know what to do in this particular moment and resorted to something familiar in an environment that was anything but.

Segura had never played in the postseason before. He had never had a bigger at bat in his life. Then, he stepped to the plate in the ninth inning of Friday’s Wild Card Series Game 1 at Busch Stadium, the Phillies trailing, everything on the line — and refused to let 10 years worth of build-up reach an anticlimactic resolution.

So he departed the earth.

“Just like when you give a little kid a toy,” Segura said about an hour after a two-run single turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 advantage, a Game 1 offensive clunker into one of the most memorable wins in franchise history. “Just jumping around and happiness.

“That’s why you play the game.”

The script almost felt too perfect. The Phillies had turned a 2-0 slog into something interesting, loading the bases in the ninth with a run already home against Ryan Helsley, one of the best relievers in baseball, who was 60% of the way through an attempted five-out save. J.T. Realmuto, who last week had played the second-most games among active players without a postseason appearance, had started the rally with a one-out single.

A few batters later, it was on Segura, who last week was No. 1 on that list, to complete the comeback.

“I just do my best knowing what is my strength as a baseball player,” Segura later said. “Put it in play; big things happen.”

So he did, and so they did. Segura worked the count to 2-2, then swatted at an Andre Pallante slider way low and way outside, dribbling it to the left of Cardinals second baseman Tommy Edman. Shortly after it barely squeaked through, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos scored for the second and last lead change of the day.

It was a moment 11 years in the making for Phillies fans and 10 years in the making for Segura — or, depending on how you look at it, nine hours.

“I was ready today. I woke up at 7 a.m. with adrenaline in my body knowing that I am going to play a postseason game today,” Segura said. “I just thank God that everything went to my side.”

Zack Wheeler, too, can thank whatever divine being must’ve intervened during the Phillies’ unfathomable six-run outburst. Wheeler had just thrown 6 1/3 innings of shutout ball in his postseason debut, doing his best to “dump some zeroes and give our team a chance,” as he put it.

He scattered two hits and walked one in a phenomenal start that looked like it would end with his team a game away from elimination.

The ninth inning had other plans.

“Watching Jean, honestly,” said Wheeler when asked his favorite part of that onslaught. “Jean has been waiting so long to get into a playoff game, and he comes through with that base hit. Very big time. That was a lot of fun to watch.”

Whatever Segura’s future with the Phillies (that’s a conversation for the offseason, of course), the biggest hit of his career, and the biggest hit by any Phillie since Ben Francisco’s two-run homer in Game 3 of the 2011 NLDS, won’t be forgotten anytime soon — particularly if it only fueled one of two Phillies wins in St. Louis this weekend.

“That’s why you become a big leaguer — those type of moments,” Segura said. “Because I think when you come through in those type of moments, people and the fans are going to remember you forever.”

Destiny Lugardo contributed to this report.