Alec Bohm, Phillies find their power late to beat the Braves and force a Game 3
Down 3-1 in the eighth inning, the Phillies got back-to-back homers from Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper before Alec Bohm gave them the lead for good in the 10th. The deciding Game 3 is Thursday.
ATLANTA — Staring down the potential end of his Phillies tenure, Alec Bohm set up against Didier Fuentes in the 10th inning.
With the Phillies facing elimination from their wild-card series in Game 2, and Bohm nearing free agency, it was fair to wonder as he dug in if it could be his final at-bat in a Phillies uniform. But with one swing, Bohm ensured the season would extend another day. The infielder powered a fastball over the wall in right field to put the Phillies in front for a 4-3 victory over Atlanta in 10 innings on Wednesday.
Backed by gutsy pitching performances from start to finish, the Phillies staved off elimination and forced a Game 3 to decide the series on Thursday. Rookie Andrew Painter pitched the final three innings to get the win in his playoff debut. The Braves advanced the go-ahead run to first on a pair of singles in the 10th, but Painter did not falter. He went right after Dominic Brown, getting two swings on his changeup.
Brown watched the third pitch go by for a ball, but J.T. Realmuto successfully challenged the call for a game-ending strikeout.
The first spark of hope for the Phillies came in the eighth, when back-to-back homers from Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper tied the game back up. The Braves outfielders didn’t move a muscle; they didn’t even turn around to watch them go. Silence settled over the stadium, which had been raucous just moments before. The Phillies’ biggest bats resuscitated the season, which had just looked like it was about to end — once again — because of a defensive miscue.
Harper moved back to right field at the trade deadline in a switch he and the Phillies thought might give them the best chance to win in October. But a misread on a fly ball from Drake Baldwin in a crucial moment in the seventh led to it going over his head and Atlanta taking the lead.
He found a way to redeem himself with his bat. Three pitches after Schwarber sent one from Dylan Lee 447 feet, Harper gave a slider a ride to right center to tie the game at 3.
Starter Cristopher Sánchez did all he could to extend the Phillies’ season another day. His 116 pitches were a career high, as he covered 6⅔ innings. But just as the Braves had no answer for Sánchez’s changeup, the Phillies had no answer for Tyler Mahle’s splitter.
After the clubs traded first-inning runs, they remained deadlocked until Harper’s miscue in the seventh. Atlanta loaded the bases with one out against Sánchez in the sixth, but when Michael Harris II attacked a first-pitch sinker and sent it to Bohm, the first baseman didn’t hesitate.
He fired a strike to Realmuto for the force at home, and was back at first to receive the return throw to complete the double play.
Even that didn’t translate to offensive momentum for the Phillies. Through seven innings against Mahle, they scattered six hits, half of which came in the first.
After Harper finally tied things back up, the Phillies turned to Painter to make his playoff debut with the season on the line.
