There seems to be a simple set of directions for the Phillies when pitcher Cristopher S\u00e1nchez starts a game. That is to score early, settle in and watch the master go to work, score some more runs and pretty much call it a game.<\/p>\n
They followed that guideline Wednesday night against the Mets and it led to an 11-3 victory, their 10th\u00a0win in their last 13 games. The Phillies sent eight batters to the plate twice. They got three hits and five RBI from Max Kepler and three hits and two RBI from Brandon Marsh in their 14-hit barrage that led to the lopsided win. <\/p>\n
The Phillies are now 86-60 on the season, leading the Mets in the National League East by 10 games. They also lowered their magic number to clinch the division to seven.<\/p>\n
The Phillies have now taken the first three games of this four-game series and have clinched their 31st\u00a0series win on the season, sixth best in club history. With five series left, they have a chance to beat the club record \u2013 which is 34 \u2013 set in 2011. <\/p>\n
After Thursday\u2019s game against the Mets, the Phillies close out the season with a three-game series against the Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Miami Marlins and Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n
In their last 151 games at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies have posted 102 wins, have won 11 of their last 12 series and have victories in 29 of their last 40 games at home. <\/p>\n
The outfield du-jour of Marsh, Kepler and Harrison Bader combined to go eight for 14 with five runs and seven RBIs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone\u2019s on board with the same goal and everyone\u2019s moving at the same pace,\u201d said Kepler of the outfielders. \u201cEven if you\u2019re not playing and on the bench, people are contributing and they\u2019re contributing as a teammate, by cheering the guy in the box or whoever is in the field. There\u2019s a feeling of everyone has each other’s backs, if you\u2019re playing or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillies offense wasted no time in getting a lead for S\u00e1nchez, as they sent two to the plate in the first inning and six more by the seventh. <\/p>\n
The Mets scored their lone run off S\u00e1nchez in the fourth when Juan Soto led off the inning with a fan-interference-helped double to deep left-center. He moved to third on a Pete Alonso single and scored on an RBI single by Starling Marte. <\/p>\n
The Phillies and S\u00e1nchez got out of the inning when the newly formed double play duo of shortstop Bryson Stott and second baseman Donovan Walton turned it to end the inning.<\/p>\n
It was Stott\u2019s first appearance at short this season but may not be the last, with a hamstring injury sidelining Trea Turner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just kept my focus on pitching and we\u2019re at home so we have to take advantage of that,\u201d said Sanchez, who let up six runs and eight hits in five one\/third innings against the Mets a couple weeks ago. \u201cAttacking with the plan that we had and just staying calm and keeping composure as well. That\u2019s what you call adjustment. I think that we made the right adjustments, and we got the results to show that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not many games left and we\u2019ve got to keep going. This isn\u2019t over until it\u2019s over. We always have to keep going, winning games and step up, our defense, our pitching, everything. We just have to keep trying to win every game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phillies added two more in the fifth as J.T. Realmuto got an infield hit to third and scored on a double by Brandon Marsh. The Mets removed starter Clay Holmes and on the first pitch from reliever Gregory Soto, Kepler hit a broken-bat single to center to score Marsh.<\/p>\n
They again had eight hitters go to the plate in scoring four runs in the sixth, which included two hit batters, a walk and three singles. Marsh drove in one with a single, Kepler two with a single and Otto Kemp had a sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud of the ball club,\u201d said manager Rob Thomson. \u201cThat\u2019s the way it\u2019s been here for a while. We\u2019ve lost guys and other guys just step in and take hold of the situation. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going through right now. Everybody understands where we\u2019re at and what we need to do to get this thing done. Things change in a heartbeat. I\u2019m not counting my chickens right now. We\u2019ve just got to keep moving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bryce Harper hit his 25th\u00a0home run of the season to right in the seventh for a run and Kepler blasted a solo shot to right in a two-run eighth inning.\u00a0Juan Soto hit a solo homer off Jose Alvarado in the eighth for the Mets’ other run.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez left after six innings of work, allowing four hits, the one run and striking out six. He improved to 13-5 and lowered his ERA to 2.57.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis changeup was really good tonight, better than last time (against the Mets),\u201d said Thomson. \u201cHe had 11 whiffs, a little trouble in the fourth inning and worked out of it, only giving up one run. That shows his poise and character. He had a good night.\u201d<\/p>\n
As did Kepler. The Phillies are not 15-1 in games in which he homers. He also uncharacteristically broke his splintered bat over his knee after he singled in a run in the fifth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good feeling to smash one over your leg from time to time,\u201d said Kepler. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely not me. I\u2019m not a hardo. That\u2019s just in the moment I wanted to let that out and smash my bat. I\u2019ve done that once before, also on a hit. I don\u2019t know what got into me there. That\u2019s a hardo moment, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Call it hardo or maybe just relief that he and his outfield teammates are playing so well at just the right time of the season.<\/p>\n
The Phillies close out the series on Thursday with a national broadcast on FOX. First pitch is set for 7:15 p.m. ET. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There seems to be a simple set of directions for the Phillies when pitcher Cristopher S\u00e1nchez starts a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":217348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,35360,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-217347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-phillies-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115183929593859502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}