After another uncertain offseason, Alec Bohm blasts off in Phillies’ opening-day victory
Bohm, who might have been the odd man out when the Phillies thought they’d signed Bo Bichette, took the biggest swing of the day in a 5-3 victory over the Rangers.
When the sun is shining, and it’s 76 degrees in March, and the Phillies are walking single-file down stairs, across an outfield red carpet and into a new season, it’s natural to think about what lies ahead.
Sometimes, though, a backward glance is required.
Rewind, then, to those 12 hours in the middle of January when team officials believed — no, they were darn-near certain — that they added free-agent slugger Bo Bichette to the infield — which likely would’ve meant subtracting Alec Bohm.
Here, again, in the present, guess who took the Phillies’ biggest swing on opening day?
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So, that’s Bohm with a “B,” right?
“I know he takes a lot of … stuff,” manager Rob Thomson said after Bohm took a stick to the season-opening piñata with a three-run homer in the fifth inning of a 5-3 victory over the Rangers. “But the guy’s going to put the ball in play. He’s going to give you a good at-bat.”
It happened in the fifth inning. With two on and two out — after Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper struck out back-to-back — Bohm drove a waist-high cutter from Texas starter Nathan Eovaldi the other way to right field and put the 44,610 paying customers in sold-out Citizens Bank Park in a festive mood on an unofficial holiday in South Philly.
There were other standout performers, chiefly:
Cristopher Sánchez. Still the best pitcher that not enough folks in baseball talk about, he dialed up his mid-90s sinker, slowed bats with his signature changeup, sprinkled in a few splitters, and struck out 10 batters across six dominant innings.
Justin Crawford. With about 40 family and friends in attendance, including his major league All-Star father, he lined a single up the middle on the first pitch of his career, then added a single to center field.
Schwarber. After coming back to the Phillies in free agency on the biggest contract ever for a full-time designated hitter (five years, $150 million), he swatted his third opening-day homer in his fifth opener with the team, a two-run shot to left field in the first inning against Eovaldi.
“Kind of a little bit of a flashback to ‘22,” Schwarber said, referencing an opening-day homer after signing his first Phillies contract. “I’m happy to be back. This is the place I wanted to be from the get-go. Happy we’re here, and happy about the group that we have.”
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But it was Bohm, self-described as “prototypically not your average cleanup hitter” on a team that ran back the core of its roster, who supplied most of the offense.
“For me, in situations like the one today, it’s just slowing it down, not trying to do too much,” Bohm said. “Don’t think that I have to pull the ball, and just hit the ball where it’s supposed to go and not go up there and try to predetermine what I’m going to swing at or what I’m looking for.”
OK, some perspective: It’s one game. And Bohm also had a big hit on opening day last year (after an offseason of being dangled as a human trade rumor), a tiebreaking two-run double in the 10th inning in Washington. Then, he fell into a slump that left him batting .150 with only that one extra-base hit through 15 games. He didn’t homer until May 6.
The Phillies went after Bichette because they knew they needed more right-handed thump. And after he signed instead with the rival Mets for a higher salary over a shorter term, the cleanup spot came into even greater focus.
None other than Harper, who saw the lowest rate of pitches in the strike zone of any hitter in baseball last season, brought it up at the outset of spring training.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s me or Schwarbs [batting third], I think the [No.] 4 spot’s a huge impact,“ Harper said. ”I think the numbers in the four-spot weren’t very good last year either for our whole team. So, I think whoever’s in that four-spot is going to have a big job to do."
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Indeed, the Phillies ranked 20th in the majors with a .720 OPS from the cleanup spot. Bohm, 6-foot-5 and with shoulders that can provide shade on even a sun-splashed March day, has one 20-homer season. Last year, amid rib and shoulder injuries, he hit only 11.
But Bohm drove in 97 runs in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024. He’s getting the first shot now at the cleanup spot — with Harper batting third and Schwarber second — in an order that steady-eddie Thomson said could change.
“If there are RBI situations out there, for the most part, he’s going to come through,” Thomson said. “That’s what he did two years ago. I really like him in that four-spot.”
Said Schwarber: “I feel like he just needs to go out there and be himself. And when he does that, he can take you [opposite field], he can hit a double, he’ll pull a homer. I feel like he’s such a tough out in our lineup, and I’m looking forward to getting a full season out of him healthy and keeping him rolling.”
It’s a big year for Bohm, too. He would’ve been a potential offshoot of Bichette’s arrival. Instead, with free agency looming after the season, he can boost his own stock with a rebound season.
(Bohm declined to discuss a lawsuit that he filed this week against his parents, alleging that they defrauded him of millions of dollars under the guise of managing his financial affairs.)
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With Sánchez carving up the Rangers’ bats — he gave up back-to-back two-out singles in the first inning, a two-out double to Andrew McCutchen in the fourth, and nothing more — Bohm’s drive into the right-field bleachers opened a 5-0 lead.
“It just kind of reaffirms that I’m not up there trying too hard,” Bohm said. “When I’m locked in and going the other way, I feel like the swing’s coming out the way I want it, I’m swinging at the pitches I want to swing at, and all the rest takes care of itself.”
And the run-it-back cleanup hitter leads a run-it-back team to a feel-good opening day.