Diamondbacks rally to beat Phillies, 5-4
If Phillies fans want to find a reason for hope all they have to do is look at this weekend's guest at Citizens Bank Park, the resurgent Arizona Diamondbacks.
If Phillies fans want to find a reason for hope all they have to do is look at this weekend's guest at Citizens Bank Park, the resurgent Arizona Diamondbacks.
It's hard to believe that the Diamondbacks won fewer games last season than the Phillies and yet now are challenging in the highly competitive National League West.
Arizona (42-26) was 69-93 last season, while the Phillies were 71-91.
While the Diamondbacks entered Friday trailing Colorado by a game in the West, the Phillies were sporting the worst record in baseball.
The teams kept going in opposite directions.
Trailing 4-2, Arizona used a three-run seventh inning to defeat the Phillies, 5-4, before 18,140.
Arizona tied the score, 4-4, when Gregor Blanco crushed a 77-mph curveball from Aaron Nola to right field in the seventh inning. Nola was lifted when the next batter, David Peralta, hit a single.
"The one to Blanco hurt us, hurt me," Nola said. "I didn't throw it where I need to, I need to throw it more down."
Paul Goldschmidt greeted reliever Pat Neshek with a single to left, putting runners at the corners with nobody out. The Diamondbacks then took a 5-4 lead on Jake Lamb's sacrifice fly to center.
In six-plus innings, Nola allowed five runs on nine hits. He threw 106 pitches, 66 for strikes. It was the first time this season he has thrown at least 100 pitches.
"The pitcher knows when he hangs a curve ball and he got burned," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. "For six innings he was pretty good."
The Phillies (22-44) had runners at the corners in the seventh, but Archie Bradley came in and struck out Howie Kendrick on a 98-mph fastball. Bradley would also pitch a scoreless eighth inning.
Closer loser Fernando Rodney pitched a scoreless ninth inning for his 19th save.
Arizona took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning on an RBI groundout by Daniel Descalso and a two-out RBI single up the middle by No. 8 hitter Jeff Mathis.
Odubel Herrera broke up Patrick Corbin's perfect game with a leadoff triple in the fourth inning. He scored on Kendrick's RBI groundout to second.
In the same inning, Tommy Joseph extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a two-out single off the wall in right field.
An Arizona resident, Joseph snapped an 0-for-23 streak against the Diamondbacks when he registered his first-ever hit against them.
Phillies catcher Cameron Rupp tied the score with an opposite-field home run to right in the fifth inning. It was the fifth home run for Rupp, who was hitting .105 in his previous 17 games. It was Rupp's first extra base hit since May 19, when he hit a home run against Pittsburgh.
A two-out, two-run double by Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco that hit the bottom of the wall in left-center broke the 2-2 tie in the sixth inning. That scored Herrera, who opened the inning with a single, and Aaron Altherr, who reached base on an error by third baseman Lamb.
Franco entered the game having hit .158 in his previous 15 games at Citizens Bank Park.
The Diamondbacks would then come back with three runs in the seventh and they have matched the best 68-game start to a season in club history. They also went 42-26 in 2002.
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