Categories: 2023 Postgame Recaps

Angels spoil pair of memorable homers as Phillies miss sweep

Trea Turner hit a huge home run in Wednesday’s loss. (Photo by John Jones/Icon Sportswire)

The script was written too perfectly. Trea Turner, capping off the month in which he turned his season around with a three-run homer — the Phillies’ franchise-record-extending 58th long ball of the month. Giving the Phillies a one-run late-inning lead the day after a different three-run homer had done the exact same. Leading an apparent comeback win for a three-game home sweep over the Angels for the second consecutive season.

Too perfectly, indeed.

Turner did his part — as he has throughout a month that saw his OPS rise by 74 points. Bryce Harper did his, too, with a separate go-ahead homer, the 300th big fly of his career and his 10th in a month that saw his own OPS raise by a staggering 118.

But it was the moments immediately following each of those which, to stretch the metaphor, ruined the show.

A pair of Gregory Soto walks, and a subsequent pair of Seranthony Domínguez singles, immediately erased the lead that Turner’s homer provided, giving the Phillies a one-run deficit in the top of the eighth. Still, it seemed Harper had negated it, setting the scene for a sweep reminiscent of the one the Phillies earned over the Angels last June.

Not so fast. If August treated any Phillie poorly, it’s Craig Kimbrel. A dropped third strike and a single put runners on the corners with nobody out, and two batters after a sacrifice fly tied the game at eight, Brandon Drury delivered the blow of the day.

It was, doubtless, a gut-punch. It’s the second straight series in which a memorable late Harper homer set the stage for a sweep, only to have the bullpen — Kimbrel, specifically — fail to seal it.

It all made for a wild way to end a game that once seemed relatively unassuming. Cristopher Sánchez had a rare poor start, in which he allowed five runs over 4 2/3 innings. The last of those runs scored with Jeff Hoffman on the mound in the top of the fifth, before Turner’s first extra-base hit of the day set Nick Castellanos up for an RBI single in the home half. Hoffman kept the Phillies within two in the sixth, and Matt Strahm held the lead at one in the seventh after Turner’s monstrous homer.

Ironically, it was those two who did their part in the Phillies’ bullpen, not the back end of Soto, Domínguez (to a lesser extent) and Kimbrel, who have each had their share of struggles the past couple months — a trend that would behoove the Phillies to reverse ahead of the postseason.

The Phillies still need to get there, but even with Wednesday’s loss, they’re in an enviable position. They sit with a three-game lead over the Chicago Cubs for the first Wild Card spot, and they’re five games clear of a playoff spot altogether.

But a win as dramatic as Wednesday’s shaped up to be would have been a nice exclamation point to August, which the Phillies conclude at 17-10. It was a resounding success littered with memorable moments — but, oddly, some of the very best came in losses. Wednesday was a prime example.

Ticket IQ Next Game