Alec Bohm righted himself on second base and swiped his hand on the Phillies logo across his chest, staring back across the diamond at his dugout.
The Phillies first baseman has been riding a hot streak at the plate for the past few weeks, and he continued it Tuesday against the Marlins by punching a slider to left-center field. The RBI double was part of a five-hit, four-run outburst in the sixth inning that put the Phillies ahead for the 6-4 win over the Marlins.
“That low, rising liner,” said Bryson Stott, who also drove in a pair, “that’s my favorite swing of his.”
Kyle Schwarber came a few feet foul of a three-run homer that would have turned the inning into a total bloodbath. He even completed his home run trot before the initial call of fair was overturned by replay review. Schwarber later made up for it, though, with an RBI single in the eighth inning that scored a big insurance run.
Bohm drove in the Phillies’ first run of the game with a single in the first, and he wasn’t done after the double. He also completed an unassisted double play to help out José Alvarado in the seventh, reaching out to snag a line drive and beating Javier Sanoja back to first in one fell swoop.
“We told him he couldn’t play in the NFL, only college, because he only got one foot in there,” Stott said jokingly. “But that was a sick play.”
Bohm pointed to an on-field batting practice session before the Phillies’ series opener in St. Louis last week where he felt like things started to click for him offensively. Bohm sat out that game to give Bryce Harper a day at designated hitter.
“I just felt a really good rhythm, and it wasn’t really anything I intentionally tried to do different or anything,” Bohm said. “I don’t know what it really was.”
Whatever the cause, he felt like he carried the rhythm into the next day, and then the next day. And since the St. Louis series, Bohm has been hitting at a .500 clip. In his last eight games, Bohm has five doubles and a homer.
“It’s a crazy game,” Bohm said. “Obviously, I would have liked to feel great all year long and do it in April, but it’s a crazy game. Just some random little thing can kind of click or whatever.”
The sixth-inning eruption was key for the Phillies to overcome two fielding errors and five walks issued by the pitching staff.
Through the first four innings, the only hit starter Zack Wheeler allowed was an 0-2 count homer from Griffin Conine. But he often fell behind and had seven three-ball counts, four of which resulted in walks.
Two of those walks came back to bite him in the fifth. Wheeler lost the zone against Brian Navarreto and Jakob Marsee, issuing free passes to both. Xavier Edwards laced a line drive into center field for a single that scored a run. But an outfield assist from Justin Crawford, who combined with Trea Turner and Luis Arraez to catch Edwards sliding into second, limited the damage there.
The deep counts drove up Wheeler’s pitch count, and he was lifted after 98 pitches and five innings. The Phillies right-hander has not completed six innings in his last five starts, although that includes a rain-shortened outing in Baltimore on Aug. 2.
“That’s the frustrating part, really. It’s just not characteristic of me, and I feel like I’ve been walking too many guys the past handful of games,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler made an adjustment after his last start that helped him get back into his legs more in his delivery. That helped his fastball, and his velocity was back to normal after losing a tick in his previous start in St. Louis. Three of his seven strikeouts came on the pitch.
But this time, he didn’t have feel for his off-speed pitches.
“It’s hard to pitch with one pitch,” Wheeler said. “Worked out well at the beginning, and then just kind of got sloppy toward the end.”
Even so, Wheeler is confident he will put all the pieces together. Interim manager Don Mattingly said he wasn’t worried either, since Wheeler’s stuff was still at its normal quality, even if his command was inconsistent.
“I know I still got it, and there’s no question about that,” Wheeler said.
The Marlins capitalized on throwing errors from Arraez in the sixth inning and Orion Kerkering in the eighth to score two unearned runs.
But the offense responded. Their sixth-inning outburst started with Turner getting hit by a pitch. Arraez used his bat-to-ball skills to reach down for a slider well below the zone, flaring it into center for a single to put two on for Bohm.
After his RBI double, Bohm scored standing up on a single up the middle from Stott. Brandon Marsh and Crawford each joined the party with singles, giving the Phillies a 5-3 lead in a game they trailed 3-1.
“Just as a whole, it’s been a lot more of the focus of just getting on base and trying to set up the next guy,” Bohm said. “And just trying to string things together, and just get a lot of traffic.”
That focus has led to tangible results. The Phillies collectively have a .371 on-base percentage in August, which leads baseball. Going into the All-Star break, they had a .303 marker that ranked third-worst in baseball.
A big part of that has been Stott and Harper, who extended their on-base streaks to 19 games and 22 games, respectively, on Tuesday.
Turner was hit with a fastball on the wrist in the seventh inning, but the umpires ruled that he had swung and it was deemed a strikeout instead. Turner was checked out by trainers but remained in the game.
With closer Jhoan Duran unavailable after pitching back-to-back games, Brooks Raley delivered a 1-2-3 ninth to pick up his first save as a Phillie. He was helped out by two diving plays from Stott at third base.
“Both those plays right there at the end were right in Bohm’s chest, so it’s always good to have a really good third baseman,” Wheeler said. “The guys also picked me up tonight. We’ve been putting together some good at-bats lately, and that’s what good teams do.”
