Never mind the 85-degree heat and 65% humidity. If you focused on everything else — Sánchez vs. Sale; Game 1 of seven, albeit over two weekends; a jam-packed ballpark — you might have sworn this was October.
Instead, call it what it was: a dress rehearsal.
Because even if the Phillies don’t run down the Braves for the division crown — and it got considerably more difficult after a 5-2 loss Friday night that widened the deficit to five games with 21 to play — they remain firmly in postseason position after 2½ torrid weeks in August.
“It’s not the way we wanted to start the series,” said Alec Bohm, who doubled and homered against Braves ace Chris Sale in only the Phillies’ fourth loss in 19 games. “Obviously we understand it’s a big series, and if we come in here and have a really good series, we can shake some things up a little bit, put ourselves in a really good spot.”
At minimum, these four games and three next weekend in Atlanta will gauge how the Phillies match up against the National League’s elite. And after one game, two familiar concerns arose:
- Bullpen.
- Defense.
Take the first one first. Cristopher Sánchez gave up three runs in the second inning but battened down the hatches and got through six. The Phillies cut into the Braves’ lead and were trailing, 3-2, in the eighth when Orion Kerkering ran in from the bullpen.
Three batters later, it was 5-2.
With one out, Kerkering got ahead of pinch-hitting Mike Yastrzemski but was unable to put him away. He walked him on six pitches, then hung a sweeper to Mauricio Dubón.
“Just a breaking ball that sat there,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “It looked like the first [pitch], he got him [for a called strike], then threw another one. Probably didn’t want it to be on that side of the plate.”
In the playoffs, it might’ve been Jonathan Bowlan on the mound in that situation. But Mattingly didn’t want to use Bowlan after the big righty pitched on back-to-back days this week in Arizona.
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Besides, Kerkering remains among the high-leverage arms in the Phillies’ stable. They will need him next month, just as they did the last three postseasons.
There will be angst about Kerkering until there isn’t. As a rookie in 2023, he had a hand in the tide-turning bullpen meltdowns in back-to-back games in Arizona in the NL Championship Series. Last year, he made the ill-fated throwing error that ended the season at Dodger Stadium.
Mattingly wasn’t here for that. Even so, he has ridden the Kerkering coaster. Through two months, the righty scarcely allowed a run. He struggled to throw strikes after the All-Star break, but seemed to be back on track until allowing five runs in his last four appearances.
“I think his stuff’s good,” Mattingly said. “The biggest trouble for me has been a little bit of the walks and just not making the pitch when he needs it. But I like his stuff. He’s one of our better arms in almost any situation.”
Sánchez stumbled in the second inning, allowing a leadoff walk to Lane Thomas and a single to Dubón. But the Braves didn’t score until Bryce Harper overran Austin Riley’s soft one-out single through the right side.
Maybe the Braves would’ve broken through anyway. But instead of the bases being loaded with one out, Thomas scored on the play. Two more runs came in on a groundout and Ronald Acuña Jr.’s two-out single.
The Phillies’ defense has improved since the deadline trade for second baseman Luis Arraez and last month’s drastic realignment. Harper’s play in right field has been a big part of that.
But there will be uneasiness about the Phillies’ defense until there isn’t.
In spite of it all, and amid the challenge of facing Sale, the Phillies had chances to tie the game.
They left a runner on third base in the fifth inning and Arraez on second after a leadoff double in the sixth. Bohm grounded out before Edmundo Sosa and Bryan De La Cruz — righty hitters who were in the lineup to offer a platoon advantage against Sale — struck out.
“He did what all the greats do and found his way out of it,” Bohm said. “Made pitches. Sometimes you’ve got to tip the cap. We did enough to get to him, but we didn’t get the big hit when we really needed it.”
Maybe next week in Atlanta. Or next month. This wasn’t the postseason yet. As Sánchez said through a team interpreter after the Phillies lost for only the third time in 17 games when he starts at home, “You feel it here when it’s a playoff game.”
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It doesn’t feel like that. Not yet.
“We’re not in, not guaranteed anything,” Mattingly said, “so every game’s pressure at this point, pretty much the rest of the way.”
