PHILADELPHIA — They need to get it done in Game 4. That’s all there is to say. The Phillies have some room to breathe. They’d be wise not to use it.
On Saturday afternoon, the Phillies will have an electric home crowd at their back and their most favorable pitching matchup of the series on the mound. Almost as important as what they can clinch is what they can avoid: a Saturday night flight back to Atlanta, a do-or-die Game 5, a top-tier Braves starter who figures to be a heck of a lot sharper this time around, all of this with the Phillies’ fate in the hands of a No. 3 starter who recorded just 10 outs in Game 1.
It might not be now or never, but they don’t want to find out. With a 9-1 win over the Braves in Game 3 on Friday afternoon, the Phillies have given themselves a chance to clinch their first trip to the National League Championship Series since 2010.
Here are five reasons to believe:
1. Bryce Harper is doing the MV3 thing again
With apologies to Rhys Hoskins, whose three-run home run and emphatic one-handed bat spike will forever exist as one of the iconic moments in Phillies postseason history, the performance that bodes most well for Game 4 was the one turned in by Harper. The echoes from Hoskins’ third-inning blast had barely subsided when Harper stepped to the plate and launched a 400-plus-foot blast into the right-center seats. He narrowly missed another home run in the seventh inning, his shot to deep center field bouncing off the wall for an RBI double. After a brutal September, Harper now has five extra-base hits in his last four playoff games. We’ve seen how completely he can carry a team when he is hitting everything. Right now, he is not missing much.
2. The energy at Citizens Bank Park could make a slug run through a wall
You don’t have to flip back too many pages in the History of the Phillies to see the limits of home field advantage in a playoff clincher. Before Friday, the most recent postseason game at Citizens Bank Park was a do-or-die Game 5 against the Cardinals in the 2011 NLDS. It did not end well. At the same time, that night did feature one of the better pitching performances you will see in the form of Roy Halladay’s complete-game loss. Chris Carpenter just happened to be better. Charlie Morton is on the mound this time around. The home crowd will be a factor.
In spite of 2011, the history bodes well. The Phillies are 11-4 lifetime in potential playoff series clinchers, including 6-2 at home.
— Can Harper and Hoskins keep doing their thing at the plate?
— What does history say about the Phillies’ chances of clinching this one on Saturday?
Well, it depends on your time frame.
3. The Phillies have seen plenty of Morton, and the results have been encouraging.
The veteran righty was an improbable Cy Young candidate not long ago. This year, he’s been well short of that. Still a plenty capable No. 4 starter, more so than any of the options that the Phillies are considering to throw on their behalf. But in five starts against Morton this season, the Phillies have scored 17 runs, with three home runs, 11 walks and 31 hits in 26 1/3 innings. Worth remembering that Morton briefly was a Phillie before hurting himself covering first base on a bunt play back in 2016.
4. The defense can’t be worse than it has been the last couple of games.
Can it?
Bueller?
They need it to be better than it was for Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola. You can get away with giving away outs behind those two. Well, usually. The stakes are much different with Noah Syndergaard, Kyle Gibson, or Bailey Falter on the mound.
In Game 3, the trouble began on the very first pitch of the game, when Bryson Stott misjudged a routine chopper by Ronald Acuña Jr. and didn’t even get leather on the ball as it bounced over his glove and through the left side of the infield.
It continued in the third, when Alec Bohm one-hopped a throw to first after making a nice pick of a sharp bouncer off the bat of Acuña. It was a bad throw but took a clean bounce that plenty of first basemen could have fielded. Hoskins made it look especially difficult. Later, with one out and men on first and second in the sixth inning, Hoskins failed to squeeze a perfect relay throw from Jean Segura that would have completed a fairly routine double and preserved the shutout. Instead, the Braves had a runner on third and an extra at-bat, and they capitalized in the form of a two-out RBI single by Michael Harris II that cut the Phillies’ lead to 6-1. That’s three plays Hoskins should have made in his last 12 innings of work at first base.
5. Hoskins at least has the ability to cancel out his fielding with his bat
In his first 10 career at-bats against Strider, Hoskins struck out seven times with no hits. In his 11th career at-bat, he hit a three-run home run to give the Phillies a 4-0 lead in their first home playoff game in 11 years. Is Hoskins a perfect player? No. But he showed why you can live with his defense at first base. He’s a streaky player. If he’s in the beginning stages of a hot stretch, well, that would be helpful to the cause.
