ATLANTA — Bryson Stott had a brief moment of hesitation.
As the ground ball bounced into his glove at third base, he paused to take a peek over at second. But Braves infielder Austin Riley was already sliding in, and it was clear Stott’s only play would be across the diamond.
After he double-clutched, Stott’s throw to first was low, and Alec Bohm couldn’t come up with it off the hop. Instead of ending the inning, yet another run scored for Atlanta.
And that’s about when the inning spiraled completely out of control.
The Braves exploded for eight runs in the fourth on Saturday, en route to a 12-2 rout of the Phillies that all but dashed their hopes of catching the National League East leaders. Seven of those runs came with two outs in the inning.
“Obviously, that’s a really good team over there,” Bryce Harper said. “They’re pitching the ball really well right now, hitting in timely situations. But also, we got baseball to play, so we can’t get down. We can’t wonder what’s going to happen or what-ifs. We just got to keep playing.”
Scratching Jesús Luzardo, one of the NL’s most dominant pitchers, the night before and replacing him with a bullpen game was always going to make securing a win on Saturday a tall task. But the Phillies were hardly even competitive.
The Braves’ lead on the division has grown to six games over the Phillies, with 13 games remaining in the regular season for both teams. With the Cubs’ victory over the Pirates earlier on Saturday, the Phillies have now fallen behind Chicago into the second wild-card spot.
“You always set out the year, you want to win your division,” said interim manager Don Mattingly. “And you’d like to set yourself up with a bye if you can. But none of that guarantees anything, even if you do that. So now, the focus is really to win every day. We got to get ourselves in, and then if you’re good enough, you win.”
The fourth-inning meltdown completely erased the work done by Tim Mayza, who was billed as an opener but was efficient enough to complete three scoreless innings for the first time this season. Mayza used 31 pitches to face the minimum, as the infield turned two double plays to erase the only two hits he allowed.
Harper even gave him a lead to work with, responding to the resounding boos from the Braves fans with a first-inning homer off Tyler Mahle, 426 feet to straightaway center.
Harper took his time rounding the bases, just like Ronald Acuña Jr. had after his game-tying blast earlier this week in Philadelphia. The Braves star also popped out on the top step of the visitors’ dugout at Citizens Bank Park for a curtain call to further taunt Phillies fans. Harper didn’t go quite that far, but still relished the villain role in Atlanta.
“They’re going to boo me when I come in here. They love their players. They love their team,” Harper said. “… We’ve had a heated rivalry for 15 years now, me and them.”
But Acuña had the last laugh this time. Once Brooks Raley took over for Mayza in the fourth, he matched Harper with a homer of his own, right into the visitors’ bullpen in left field.
Raley had been one of three Phillies pitchers charged with a blown save in Friday’s 11-inning game, and the veteran left-hander also took the loss when Drake Baldwin walked him off. Raley didn’t fare much better Saturday.
“Not the success I would want, especially how last night finished and today,” Raley said. “But all you can do is execute pitches and go about your day and put your head down the next day and go back again.”
He managed to secure two outs, but still left runners on the corners for Grant Holman, the next man up in the bullpen.
Holman had been added to the Phillies roster after it expanded on Sept. 1, taking the extra pitcher slot. But since then, he had waited in the bullpen for 11 days to be called on.
He allowed both inherited runs to score right away, on a single from Mauricio Dubón through the left side of the infield.
“It seems like every ground ball they hit found a hole tonight,” Mattingly said.
Riley hit another single, before Sean Murphy sent the grounder to Stott for what could have been the third out. If Stott had made a higher throw, or if Bohm had been able to pick it, the Phillies would have kept Atlanta’s lead to a manageable 3-1. But instead, Murphy was safe at first and the tailspin continued.
Stott has been the Phillies’ most reliable infielder this season, even after switching positions to third after the trade deadline to open second base for new acquisition Luis Arraez. The error was his fourth of the season.
“To me it just looks he just didn’t set his feet,” Mattingly said. “He still had time with Murphy running, just kind of threw it quick, obviously. Anytime he makes an error, really, it surprises me because he’s been really, really good over there.”
A walk, a wild pitch, and two more hits later, and the Braves had run up the score to 8-1 before Holman finally stopped the bleeding with a fly out.
Because of the error, none of the runs he allowed were earned.
Orion Kerkering made his first appearance since Sept. 4 in the fifth. He loaded the bases in the fifth on a single and two walks, but managed to end it without further damage with a lineout from Ha-Seong Kim.
Kerkering wasn’t so fortunate after returning for the sixth. A walk and another error, this time from Bohm, put runners on the corners and Atlanta tacked on another run with a sacrifice fly. With the bullpen already thin after Saturday’s extra-innings loss, Mattingly had had no choice but to push Kerkering for 1 ⅓ innings, even after a long layoff for the right-hander.
“We were definitely right on the edge of everything tonight,” Mattingly said. “If something went bad, like it did, then we were stuck.”
Justin Crawford hit his third homer of the year in the eighth inning, but by then the Phillies had already functionally conceded the game. They had put catcher Garrett Stubbs on the mound with two outs in the seventh to finish it off. Stubbs surrendered a three-run shot to Michael Harris II.
Now that the division has all but slipped away, the wild-card race comes to the forefront as the season enters its final two weeks. According to Harper, though, the Phillies must focus on themselves rather than scoreboard-watching.
“You can’t worry about what other teams are doing, especially when you’re in this situation,” he said. “So we got to play better baseball. If we don’t, we’re not going to be in. So I mean, I think as a team, we just got to look in the mirror, understand what we need to do on a nightly basis, and guys got to grind. … We got to take care of business as a team, and if we don’t, then we’re not going to be there.”
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