Former Phillies Friday: Chase Utley recalls walk-off single against Billy Wagner, Mets
2024 is the 20th year that the Philadelphia Phillies have called Citizens Bank Park home. Arguably the best game played in the history of the stadium came on Aug. 30, 2007. Chase Utley was at the forefront of the classic matchup against the division-rival New York Mets, and revisited it in a recent trip to Philadelphia to promote next month’s two-game series between the NL East rivals in London.
“That’s going back a ways,” Utley said when asked about the game.
If you don’t remember, here are some cliff notes from the afternoon.
- The Phillies jumped out to an early 5-0 lead, with Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell and Aaron Rowand all tagging Mets starter Orlando “El Duque” Hernández for home runs across the first three innings.
- New York was able to erase the 5-0 deficit with Phillies starter Kyle Lohse and reliever Geoff Geary giving up a combined five runs over the first five innings of the game, two of which were driven in by Mets right fielder Shawn Green.
- The tie was short-lived, as Carlos Ruiz, Shane Victorino and Jimmy Rollins all drove in runs in the home half of the fifth inning to give the Phillies an 8-5 lead.
- Former Phillies Marlon Anderson and Endy Chavez started the party for the Mets in the top of the eighth, with José Reyes and Carlos Delgado also driving in runs during the frame. All four runs were charged to Antonio Alfonseca, who was part of what was a pretty brutal bullpen that finished the year with a 4.73 ERA. The Mets took a 10-8 lead into the bottom of the eighth.
- Looking to avoid a four-game sweep, Mets manager Willie Randolph brought on Billy Wagner for a two-out save. Wagner had spent the 2004 and 2005 seasons with the Phillies, before leaving to sign a four-year/$43 million deal with the Mets prior to the 2006 season. Fair or unfair, that made him pretty unpopular when he returned to Citizens Bank Park as a visitor.
- Burrell homered off of Wagner in the bottom of the eighth inning, his second home run of the game. That cut the score to 10-9, but the Phillies still entered the bottom of the ninth inning trailing.
- Jayson Werth led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a single against Wagner, and then proceeded to steal both second and third base. Pinch hitter Tadahito Iguchi — who had been acquired the prior month to play second base while Utley was on the injured list with a broken right hand — drove in Werth with an RBI single to tie the game.
- Iguchi stole second base, before the Mets decided to walk Rollins, the eventual NL MVP, intentionally. That set up a lefty-on-lefty matchup, which Utley won with a walk-off single into right field that plated Iguchi and gave the Phillies a four-game sweep of the Mets.
What does Utley recall about one of the highlights of his career?
“Obviously the excitement, right? Any time you’re up in a position to help your team win a game and you actually come through and succeed, it makes you feel good,” Utley said.
As noted above, a lot happened to put Utley in position to be able to deliver a walk-off hit, which the six-time All-Star went out of his way to point out.
“But obviously, there’s a lot more at play when you win a baseball game like that,” Utley added. “Guys getting on base in front of you, stuff that happened previously in the game.”
It was Utley, though, who came through with the game-winning hit.
Sweeping the Mets allowed the Phillies to move to within two games of the NL East lead. Granted, the Mets’ lead in the division would rise to seven games with 17 remaining. But the Phillies erased the lead, ultimately capturing the NL East crown and returning to the postseason for the first time since 1993.
And in hindsight, it can be argued that the Mets showed signs of fracturing during the iconic matinee that ended with Utley delivering the metaphoric 12th-round knockout punch to Wagner.
“But yeah, Billy at the time was one of the best closers in baseball,” Utley said. “So I would imagine the odds of us coming back and winning that game were not high. But yeah, [I] kind of feel like that was one of the big games that kind of propelled and started our pretty amazing run.”
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