Phillies beat Braves in 10 innings
ATLANTA - No team in baseball has played more games on the road than this young Phillies squad, and after spending 19 of the last 22 days away from home, the players readied for a happy flight Thursday night.
ATLANTA - No team in baseball has played more games on the road than this young Phillies squad, and after spending 19 of the last 22 days away from home, the players readied for a happy flight Thursday night.
Their boundless 24-year-old leadoff hitter reached base five times against the hapless Braves in a 7-4 win. Their enigmatic 26-year-old shortstop crushed another home run. Their slumping 27-year-old catcher delivered the game-winning double in extra innings.
The Phillies will come home, improbably, with one of the best records in the National League. So it is time to notice. These Phillies reached 20 wins this season in 18 fewer games than last season.
"What a great trip," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. "We're so happy to be going home. It feels like we've been gone for three weeks."
The win Thursday, like many before it, was not simple. These Phillies do not do easy. They blew a four-run lead and almost squandered a leadoff triple in the 10th. Odubel Herrera, who went 4 for 4 with a walk, started the inning with a missile to right. He stood on third, 90 feet from scoring the go-ahead run.
But Maikel Franco and Darin Ruf struck out before Freddy Galvis walked. That shifted the pressure to catcher Cameron Rupp, 3 for his last 22. He lashed an Ian Krol slider for a two-out, bases-clearing double.
Rupp stepped on second, turned to his teammates in the dugout, and pounded his fists together. The Phillies salvaged a 5-5 record from this 10-game trip.
"Guys were going ballistic," reliever Andrew Bailey said. "It's huge."
"After four awful at- bats," Rupp said, "you always have another one, and to come up and pick up your teammates. ... To get that hit is pretty exciting."
They would not have won without four more scoreless innings from the bullpen. Starter Vince Velasquez mounted zeroes until he unraveled in the seventh. He glared in frustration at home-plate umpire Mike Winters as a few pitches just missed. The hard-throwing righthander deployed softer stuff as he faced the heart of Atlanta's order for the third time. It backfired.
"I would have rather he went right after the hitters in that seventh inning," Mackanin said. "He threw too many off-speed pitches. But he's going through a learning experience."
Velasquez loaded the bases with no outs. That brought pitching coach Bob McClure and the entire Phillies infield to the mound. Rupp suggested Velasquez go with a fastball against Gordon Beckham, who was late all night. Velasquez wanted a slider.
He hung it. Beckham stroked a bases-clearing double to the wall to end Velasquez's night.
"I don't know why I threw that pitch in the first place," Velasquez said. "Normally in those situations, bases loaded, I will challenge guys. I was passive and threw that off-speed pitch. I take full responsibility for that."
The bad inning notwithstanding, Velasquez holds a 2.70 ERA in his first seven Phillies starts. He has struck out 49 batters with just 13 walks in 431/3 innings. He has been everything the Phillies hoped he could be - with the seventh inning as evidence he still has some learning to do.
The Phillies led, 4-0, after four innings. Herrera created a run in the first inning when he walked on seven pitches, stole second, moved to third on a single, and scored on a Franco sacrifice fly. Herrera is hitting .339. He swung one-handed to hit his triple in the 10th.
"This guy, he's a potential batting champion at some point," Mackanin said. "He just has a knack."
Mackanin inserted Galvis, who hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning, as his No. 5 hitter.
"I wanted that power in there," Mackanin joked.
Just two NL shortstops - Trevor Story and Aledmys Diaz - have more home runs than Galvis.
Without contributions up and down Mackanin's roster, the 20th win would not have been possible.
@mattgelb