Ranger Suárez returns to form in Phillies’ 7-1 win over Guardians

CLEVELAND — With two out in the seventh inning Saturday, everyone at Progressive Field — including players from both teams — gazed up at the 221-foot wide video screen in left field and pretended to be umpires.

Was José Ramírez safe at second base? Did Trea Turner tag him on the hand? Was the tying run in scoring position, or was the inning over?

The whole thing seemed so … consequential.

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And then, with one pitch, Ranger Suárez reminded everyone why it didn’t really matter.

Because while the Phillies held tight to a one-run lead in an eventual 7-1 victory over the Guardians, Suárez controlled the game for seven innings. Even when a replay review upheld the safe call on the field, Suárez struck out Kyle Manzardo on the next pitch to preserve a one-run lead.

“Ranger threw great,” said Bryce Harper, who doubled and banged a two-run homer. “He went out there and did his job, kept everybody off balance, and kept us in the game the whole time.”

Harper helped the Phillies crack open a piñata of a game by going deep on a fastball in the strike zone — two rarities, given the way he has been pitched lately — in a six-run eighth inning. And Kyle Schwarber extended his on-base streak to 45 games, tied for fourth in Phillies history.

But let’s discuss that another time.

This was all about Suárez, who rebounded from a dud in his first start off the injured list six days earlier by slicing through a tough lineup.

The Guardians scored 42 runs in their previous six games, including six in the series opener Friday night. But Suárez held them to three hits, all singles. He deployed his sinker, curveball, and changeup to get eight groundouts. At one point, he set down 12 batters in a row.

And in typical fashion when things are going well, Suárez did it all as coolly as the breeze off Lake Erie.

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“He looked great,” Schwarber said. “Attacked the zone, got early contact, weak contact. I feel like that’s what you really expect out of him when he takes the mound.”

It was a stark contrast, though, from last Sunday. Suárez made his return to the rotation after dealing with a stiff low back in spring training and struggled with his command for 3⅔ innings at home against the Diamondbacks. In particular, he couldn’t locate his pitches when he threw from the stretch.

One way to resolve the problem: Don’t put runners on base.

“That last start, I thought I was kind of overthrowing the ball a little bit,” Suárez said through a team interpreter. “I think that’s the difference. I learned from that last start, and I just pitched with what I had and I had good control with it.”

Suárez didn’t go more than five innings in his minor-league tune-ups, leaving manager Rob Thomson “a little bit queasy” to stick with him for the seventh. But Suárez got through the fifth inning in seven pitches and the sixth inning in eight, so there he was, still on the mound, when Ramírez singled through the left side with one out in the seventh.

And that’s when Suárez really toughened. He won a seven-pitch duel with Carlos Santana, pesky as ever after at age 39 and in his 16th season. Santana fouled off a sinker and curveball with two strikes before Suárez froze him with a fastball at the knees.

“We all know what kind of a hitter he is,” Suárez said. “We had a plan, and it felt good to just follow the plan. It was a tough at-bat. I wanted the groundout, obviously. We didn’t get it. It ended up being a strikeout, but I executed the pitch that I wanted to get the outcome that I needed.”

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Suárez quickly got ahead with two strikes against Manzardo before lifting his leg and firing a pickoff throw to first base. Ramírez bolted for second. The umpires ruled that he beat Turner’s tag on a throw from Harper, prompting a challenge from the Phillies.

Cue the suspense.

Not for Suárez. While everyone studied the replays on the video board, Suárez stayed loose by throwing warmup pitches. And after the call was upheld, and pitching coach Caleb Cotham made a brief mound visit, Suárez got Manzardo to swing at a slider out of the strike zone.

“He just told me to stay calm,” Suárez said. “It was an 0-2 count on the hitter, so just finish that at-bat.”

The Phillies finished off the Guardians, both 23-16, to even the series before the Sunday night finale. But Schwarber’s RBI single the other way to left field in the fourth inning was all the scoring until the big eighth inning.

Mike Schmidt holds the Phillies’ longest on-base streak, a 56-gamer that spanned 1981-82. He’s followed by Chuck Klein (49 in 1930), Bobby Abreu (48 in 2000-01), Odúbel Herrera (45 in 2017-18), and now, Schwarber.

“Being able to do that day in and day out, what an incredible feat,” Harper said. “We’re all cheering for him. It’s a big thing and always fun to be part of that with him.”