Jesús Luzardo whiffs 12, and the Phillies’ bats pile on late to sweep the Mariners

Phillies pitcher Jesús Luzardo earned a few stray boos from the crowd after allowing a first-inning home run to the Seattle Mariners’ Julio Rodríguez.

By the time Luzardo left the game after a masterful six-inning, 12-strikeout performance, he got nothing but cheers from the 38,331 fans at Citizens Bank Park on Wednesday. Luzardo’s performance headlined the Phillies’ 11-2 beatdown of the Mariners to complete a dominant three-game series sweep.

“Our bats were really good the entire series,” manager Rob Thomson said. “I think the most impressive part of it is it’s the back end of a 13-day streak with no day off, and our guys came out with a lot of energy today. The whole series was good in every phase. Baserunning, pitching, defense, offense, we did a lot of really good things the last three days.”

Luzardo‘s 12 strikeouts were a season high. He allowed just three hits and didn’t issue a walk. The one blemish on his start was that first-inning Rodríguez homer, but it didn’t come on a bad pitch. Rodríguez dug the ball out of the dirt, just 0.71 feet off the ground — the lowest a Mariners hitter has hit for a home run in the pitch-tracking era (so 2008, at least) and the second-lowest in MLB since 2010 — to put the Mariners on the board.

Luzardo was especially effective with his sweeper, which he threw for 43% of his pitches and eight of his 12 strikeouts. He generated 11 whiffs with the pitch on 20 swings, and the Mariners struggled to make hard contact with the pitch when they did hit it, averaging just 75.3 mph on contact.

“We did some work in between, just understanding my mechanics, and trying to get a little more in front on certain pitches, and I think that helped the sweeper today,” Luzardo said.

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In the first series since Zack Wheeler’s surgery to remove a blood clot in his upper right arm, Luzardo showed what he’s capable of. After a stretch of inconsistency, Luzardo put together his fifth consecutive quality start, continuing to make his case that he belongs in the Phillies’ playoff rotation.

In the three-game series, the Phillies trio of Luzardo, Cristopher Sánchez, and Ranger Suárez allowed five runs with 34 strikeouts in 19 innings. The 34 strikeouts is a Phillies record for starters in a three-game series.

“For us, as a rotation, I think that the best thing we can do is just keep going and continuing to prove that we’re a top-of-the-line rotation,” Luzardo said. “Everyone just goes out there and tries to take care of their job, go pitch deep into games, and keep giving the team a chance.”

Despite Luzardo’s strong start, the Phillies weren’t running up the score in support. They had 10 hits in four innings on Mariners right-hander Luis Castillo but scored just three runs on a first-inning sacrifice fly by Kyle Schwarber, a second-inning double by Bryson Stott, and a fourth-inning solo home run from Max Kepler.

By the time Luzardo left the game, the Phillies had stranded 11 baserunners, and after David Robertson allowed a seventh-inning home run to Eugenio Suárez to pull the Mariners within one run, it looked like the Phillies would have to sweat out another close one after Tuesday’s nail-biter.

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In the seventh inning, the Phillies’ bats finally brought the hammer down. Brandon Marsh, who, even with Nick Castellanos on the bench, got an opportunity against left-hander Tayler Saucedo and worked a four-pitch walk.

Thanks to a Mariners error and RBI singles from Stott, Schwarber, and Harper, the Phillies added five runs. Schwarber hit a two-run home run in the eighth inning — his 45th — earning “M-V-P” chants from the crowd to put the Phillies up, 11-2. Schwarber’s five RBIs upped his season total to 109, a career high, extending his MLB lead with 35 games left.

The Phillies had 20 hits, second-most this season only to the 21 hits in Monday’s 12-7 win over Seattle. That’s 48 hits in the three-game set, their most in a three-game series since 1999.

“We can beat you a bunch of different ways,” Trea Turner said. “At times, we’re going to have to walk, we’re going to have to slug, we’re going to have to do the small ball and move guys over. I feel like we’ve done a good job with that lately of, man on second with nobody out, getting them over to third, and then hitting those sac flies and just keeping the line moving. We’ve got a little bit of speed, a little bit of power, so we can do a lot of different things.”

José Alvarado earned a big ovation from the Citizens Bank Park crowd in his first appearance back from a suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. He last pitched May 16 against the Pirates. Alvarado worked a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth, including a strikeout of American League MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, and he hit 99.3 mph on his fastball.