Phillies sweep the Giants with another walk-off as Alec Bohm hits a sacrifice fly in extras
Bohm also made a diving grab at third base to rob Luis Arráez and helped strand the go-ahead run in for the Giants the top of the 10th.
Giants second baseman Luis Arráez is one of the game’s top contact hitters.
When he’s at his best, Arráez has the talent to look around, find holes in the infield, and put the ball in play. To counteract it, the Phillies tried to mess with him.
“Just move around, see if we can get him to hit something at us,” said third baseman Alec Bohm.
In a crucial moment in the 10th inning in the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader, Bohm noticed Arráez looking at him when he was holding the go-ahead runner at third base. And so on the pitch, he took a few hops toward the gap between second and third, assuming that was where Arráez wanted to hit the ball. He was right.
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Because Bohm was in the perfect spot to make a diving catch on the line drive, freezing the runner at third and saving a run. The stellar defensive play helped set up Bohm’s own heroics in the bottom of the 10th, when he hit a walk-off sacrifice fly to center field to secure the 6-5 win over the Giants.
“I feel smart,” Bohm said with a laugh.
For Bohm, both the defensive and offensive plays are something he hopes can spark a turnaround in his season. The third baseman has been in a deep slump to start the year, with a .151 batting average and .426 OPS through 29 games. Throughout his offensive struggles, he has dropped to sixth in the Phillies’ order after being a mainstay in the cleanup spot last year.
His teammates have maintained confidence in him throughout it.
“He’s going to keep going, he’s going to keep battling,” said Kyle Schwarber, who hit back-to-back homers in the first inning with Trea Turner. “And then, I guarantee it, whenever this is all said and done, he’s going to look back at the year and look at the back of the baseball card, and it’s going to be pretty good.”
The Phillies swept both ends of Thursday’s doubleheader with two walk-off wins. That’s rare enough — the last time was July 24, 1998 against the Marlins — but adding to the peculiarity was the fact that the same pitcher earned both wins.
Reliever Chase Shugart woke up on Thursday with four wins to his name since his major league debut in 2024. He ends the day with six.
“Just a big moment and a big spot, and I feel like that’s my first time in a big moment like that,” Shugart said.
In the first game, Shugart only needed four pitches for the win, after he entered with two outs in the top of the ninth and struck out Matt Chapman. The second game was planned to be a bullpen game, but Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly hoped to stay away from Shugart if at all possible.
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But Shugart physically felt fine, and with the Phillies running out of arms in the bullpen for extra innings, he took the ball again. Shugart said he was willing to go out again for the 11th, too, if the game remained tied.
“Those are the type of guys you want on your team,” Bohm said. “Taking the ball twice in one day, and not just taking the ball, getting two wins, is pretty cool. But that’s the type of guy that you want to battle with.”
Shugart allowed a leadoff single to center in the 10th inning, but ghost-running Drew Gilbert held up at third instead of testing Justin Crawford’s arm. Shugart rebounded to strike out Chapman before Bohm made his stellar grab. Then, Casey Schmitt flew out to leave the go-ahead run at third.
In the bottom of the frame, Bryson Stott bunted over a ghost-running Adolis García to third base, before Bohm sent his sacrifice fly to center.
Shugart isn’t taking souvenirs from either of his wins, because he doesn’t know where the balls ended up.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I’ll take the wins and be happy about it. Get on the plane and get ready for tomorrow.”
The game was a back-and-forth affair, and was interrupted by a 24-minute rain delay in the sixth. The Phillies took an early lead on Schwarber and Turner’s homers, but then the Giants clawed back to tie it, 2-2.
A two-out rally in the fifth put the Phillies back in front temporarily, 4-2, after García delivered a two-run single with the bases loaded. But the Giants tied things back up with two runs off Trevor Richards in the sixth, and then took a 5-4 lead in the ninth with two singles off José Alvarado.
Still, the Phillies didn’t lie down. Pinch-hitting Brandon Marsh and Schwarber each doubled in the ninth to tie it and force extra innings.
“That’s more like us,” Bohm said.
Hunter Pence's 368-day stint with the Phillies was a study in extremes. Acquired at the trade deadline in 2011 as the missing right-handed bat for a World Series contender, he got dealt a year later by an underachieving team. And with the Phillies in full-on crisis mode this week, Pence sits down with "Phillies Extra," the Inquirer's baseball podcast, to discuss how quickly a team's fortunes can change. Watch here.
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