Phillies beat the Dodgers in 10 innings to clinch the NL East: ‘This year has been special’
The Phillies won a second straight division title, their latest celebration during a four-year run. But this one was the culmination of something different.
LOS ANGELES — In the end, it was a fly ball to right field that won the division.
The Phillies hit three separate go-ahead home runs against the Los Angeles Dodgers earlier on Monday night. Kyle Schwarber crushed his 53rd home run of the season in the first inning. Nine-hole hitter Weston Wilson powered a two-run shot over the center field wall in the seventh. And Bryce Harper, almost incomprehensibly, turned on a fastball that was so high above the zone it was level with his elbows in the eighth.
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But to each of these blows, the Dodgers had a response. So the Phillies continued to claw, and claw, until the 10th inning. And at last the protective plastic was unfurled in the cramped visitor’s clubhouse at Dodger Stadium after J.T. Realmuto scored ghost-running Harrison Bader from third, and David Robertson wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam to seal the 6-5 win, and with it the National League East.
“To me, this game was a microcosm of their season,” said Phillies owner John Middleton from the thick of the celebratory clubhouse. “It was a championship game. It was October baseball.”
The Phillies clinched the division title for the second consecutive season. They have had several beer-soaked celebrations to mark postseason clinchers, divisional titles, or playoff series wins over the past three years. This one, though, was the culmination of something different.
In May, the Phillies’ then-top bullpen arm, José Alvarado, was handed an 80-game suspension and banned from the playoffs after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Harper missed nearly all of June with a wrist injury. In August, Phillies lost the cornerstone of their rotation when Zack Wheeler received a season-ending diagnosis of venous thoracic outlet syndrome.
And they finished out the divisional race with half their everyday infield (Trea Turner and Alec Bohm) on the injured list.
The Phillies overcame each setback. And they won the East so resoundingly that they became the first team in the majors to celebrate a championship this season.
“This year has been special,” said manager Rob Thomson. “Because we’ve had some guys go down, and losing a guy like Wheeler could really affect a team, and it didn’t with these guys. That’s a big loss, no doubt about it. But they just kept grinding, and kept fighting and kept moving forward, and that’s what you got to do.”
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Monday started with its own setbacks. Mechanical issues on their charter flight delayed the Phillies leaving Philadelphia for several hours, and they didn’t reach Los Angeles until the early hours of Monday morning.
Even if fatigued, the Phillies took a 1-0 lead in the first inning thanks to Schwarber’s homer off lefty opener Anthony Banda. But when Banda was lifted for Emmett Sheehan, the Phillies’ bats fell silent. Schwarber’s home run marked the Phillies’ lone hit until Otto Kemp led off the seventh with a ground-rule double.
The Dodgers pulled ahead, 3-1, against starter Ranger Suárez. Mookie Betts drove in two runs with a pair of sacrifice flies, and Max Muncy clubbed a solo home run.
Kemp’s leadoff double finally chased Sheehan from the game in the seventh, and he scored on an RBI double from Bryson Stott. Wilson, starting at second base with Edmundo Sosa dealing with right groin tightness, gave the Phillies a 4-3 lead with his two-run shot.
“I don’t think these guys ever think they’re out of a game,” Thomson said. “But when they feel that kind of the momentum change a little bit, they grab onto it, and they rise to the occasion.”
The Dodgers fired back in the seventh. Orion Kerkering struck out Shohei Ohtani looking, freezing him with a fastball on the inside corner, but two pitches later, Betts took him deep to tie the game.
Then it was Harper’s turn. He put his team back ahead again with his go-ahead solo homer in the eighth inning.
After a clean frame from Matt Strahm, the Phillies were two outs away from clinching the division title with Jhoan Duran on the mound. But Andy Pages put the champagne back on ice temporarily with a game-tying home run that forced extras. It was just the second home run Duran has allowed all season, on a curveball he hung over the plate.
The Phillies didn’t let that finish them.
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With Bader starting the 10th at second base, the Dodgers intentionally walked Harper. A successful double steal took the double play off the table, and put Bader in prime position to score on Realmuto’s sacrifice fly.
“We just keep pushing,” said Schwarber. “We keep grinding.”
Forty-year-old Robertson was given the 10th. He intentionally walked Freddie Freeman to face Alex Call, but then walked him as well to load the bases with one out. And even with the tying run 90 feet away, a pop out and a groundout dashed the Dodgers’ hopes of another comeback.
Down within the visitor’s clubhouse, the music started to blare and the beer and champagne started to flow. There is more work to be done: a bye, perhaps the top seed in the National League, and then the real test begins in October.
But for now the Phillies celebrated what they have accomplished, and all it took.