Last Night In Baseball: The Phillies Pulled Off An MLB 1st Thanks To Bryce Harper

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Not "a first this season," but, "a first in MLB history." Let’s rewind. On Tuesday, the Phillies — while down to their last out — came-from-behind against the Nationals by rattling off eight runs in the ninth inning, initially going ahead on a home run by second baseman Bryson Stott. Then on Wednesday, Philadelphia was once again down its last out, and once again losing to Washington — and once again took the lead with a homer, this time by pinch-hitter Derek Hill.

On Thursday, the Phillies and Nats opened the ninth inning tied, 5-5. Left fielder Brandon Marsh had put the Phils on the board in the sixth with a 420-foot two-run homer…

…and then Philadelphia tied things up in the seventh without the long ball. Center fielder Justin Crawford and shortstop Trea Turner both singled, then DH Kyle Schwarber and first baseman Bryce Harper both walked, pushing reliever Mitchell Parker out of the game in favor of Clayton Beeter. The call to the bullpen didn’t solve the problem: Beeter walked Marsh to push another run across, then third baseman Alec Bohm drove in another on a ground out to tie the ballgame.

Schwarber led off the ninth with a single, then was replaced by pinch-runner Garrett Stubbs. That brought up Harper, who made sure that Philadelphia wouldn’t miss Schwarber’s bat later on: he drove a 90.5 mph changeup 390 feet to left-center, and the Phillies had a lead… and history.

No team in MLB’s history has ever had a game-winning home run in three-straight games. At least, until now. Can you imagine if the Phillies had two outs when this one happened, too? The chances of this feat being repeated would be even lower than they already are, and they are low.

The Phillies weren’t done there, however — it wasn’t a game-winning homer until the game was actually over and won. Marsh would single and then steal second, then catcher J.T. Realmuto doubled him home. Derek Hill, who had pinch-hit earlier and was in right, did manage a two-out homer, at least, even if it wasn’t a game-winner. A two-out dagger still matters.

This was a historic stretch for the Phillies, and a devastating one for the Nationals: it’s not difficult to imagine a situation where Washington swept Philadelphia and ended up above it in the wild-card standings, but instead, the Nats are now 8.5 back in the NL East and 4.5 behind the Phillies, as well as three behind the last wild-card spot. Meanwhile, the Phillies are just four behind the Braves after being 10.5 back on May 22, and 10 games under .500 on April 26. 

The Mets have lost six in a row. The Mets are 8-14 in June. They are 34-47 for the season, and while yes, it’s still June even as we approach the end of it, their postseason odds are less than one-tenth of 1%. That’s what happens when you need to win 13 in a row just to get back to .500, which would still leave them tied for last in the NL East assuming the Nationals stay at .500, too.

On the bright side, Dansby Swanson didn’t have a hit on Thursday. He drove in 15 runs over the first three games of the series, but yesterday? Hitless. Congratulations are in order.

The problem is that there were other Cubs who could beat the Mets in his place, and they did. Freddy Peralta had a great start going for New York with five scoreless innings, with just two hits allowed, no walks and five strikeouts. And then shortstop Ronny Mauricio had a throwing error to allow leadoff hitter Dansby Swanson to reach, and everything unraveled from there. Hey, no one said he wasn’t involved at all.

Ex-Met and right fielder Michael Conforto would then single in Swanson, and third baseman Alex Bregman would hit a double to drive in Conforto, making it 2-0, Cubs.

Left fielder Ian Happ singled in Bregman, and that was the end of Peralta’s day. Pinch-hitter Eric Wagaman would hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth, and then left fielder Jared Young — who came in as a defensive substitution in the top of the seventh as a result of Wagaman staying in the game — also went yard to tie the game at three each.

The score would stay there and send the game into extras, where the Cubs would use Matt Shaw as a pinch-runner for the starting runner, catcher Miguel Amaya, and then benefit from that decision almost immediately. While Swanson struck out, Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a double to give the Cubs the lead.

Trent Thornton would pitch in relief in the 10th for Chicago, and he retired the side in order, leaving Mauricio stranded at second. The Cubs have now won four in a row, keeping pace with the NL Central-leading Brewers as they have done the same, while the Mets. Well, that was broached at the top of this section.

The AL is a bit of a mess. Example: the Astros won on Thursday, and it gave them possession of the third wild-card spot… despite being 40-43 for the season. Now, Houston has had a ton of injuries that have caused them to post that losing record, and there is still loads of talent on the roster, so don’t take that as a slight against the ‘Stros. This is a team that has turned things around: on May 12, the Astros hit their low point at 11 games under .500 and a 16-27 record after losing four in a row. Since then, Houston has gone 24-16 — the AL West-leading Mariners are at .500, by the way, and have been hovering around that mark for much of the season.

It took until the sixth inning on Thursday for someone to score in the Astros-Tigers game, when center fielder Taylor Trammell interrupted the pitchers’ duel with his second homer of the year.

That would be the only run that Troy Melton would allow for the Tigers, but Astros’ starter Tatsuya Imai was even better. Across his six innings, he scattered two hits and a walk while striking out 10 Tigers, dropping his ERA for the season to 5.36. That might not seem like much on the ERA front, but remember that Imai had an IL stint and a rough start to his first season in MLB. Over his last month of starts — six of them — the right-hander has amassed a 3.64 ERA over 29 ⅔ innings, with 37 strikeouts against 11 walks and just two homers allowed. His ERA was 8.31 before this started; he’s shaved nearly three full runs off of that figure since May 25.

Imai also helped himself out with this nifty little play.

The Astros would add another run in the ninth on a sacrifice fly by third baseman Isaac Paredes, and that ended up mattering, since reliever Enyel De Los Santos took the mound in the bottom of the ninth and gave up a solo homer to catcher Dillon Dingler. Houston would win, 2-1, and now it has a wild-card spot to defend.

The Rangers pulled off a 6-5 win over the Blue Jays, bringing both teams even in the wild-card standings at 39-42. Largely responsible for this was center fielder Wyatt Langford, who went just 1-for-5 in the contest, but made sure that lone hit counted: it was a three-run homer, his eighth of the season.

Langford had just one home run before the month of June, and has now hit five in his last eight games alone. He’s up to .268/.315/.490 for the season now, thanks to a June in which he’s hit .299/.357/.623 to undo the damage from his slow start to 2026, which was compounded by an IL stint for a forearm strain that cost him the end of April, all of May and the start of June. It feels safe to say that there don’t appear to be any lingering effects from the injury.

Also tied with the Rangers and Blue Jays, all of .001 points of winning percentage behind the Astros? That’s the Athletics, as they managed to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Giants. Almost all of the A’s scoring came near the end of the game: they plated two in the seventh, one more in the eighth and then four in the ninth to go up, 9-6. Catcher Jonah Heim got things going by singling in center fielder Henry Bolte, tying the game up at 6-6.

Then right fielder Lawrence Butler added another run to give the Athletics the lead with a single of his own, scoring left fielder Tyler Soderstrom.

And finally, just in case some insurance was necessary, third baseman Max Muncy hit a single, too, and sent both Butler and Heim home to make it 9-6.

The AL might be a mess, but with this many teams fighting for limited wild-card spots, at least it’s going to be an entertaining one.

The Rays crushed the Royals last night, on both ends of the ball. Not only was it 13-0 at one point, but Tampa Bay had a combined no-hitter going for 8 ⅓ innings. It ended with Craig Kimbrel on the mound and catcher Carter Jensen at the plate: Jensen hit his 11th homer of the year, a two-run shot that also scored Starling Marte, who had walked two batters prior.

A win is a win, and losing by 11 doesn’t exactly feel great, but this has got to be considerably better from Kansas City’s point of view than getting straight-up no-hit and rocked.

Speaking of the rocking, Junior Caminero was responsible for much of it. He was 3-for-5 on the day with three runs and six RBIs, thanks to going yard not once, not twice, but thrice.

The 22-year-old third baseman got started early, too, hitting a two-run dinger in the first inning off of Seth Lugo on a 77.6 mph changeup that not only didn’t fool the power threat, but also came in middle-middle.

In the fifth, Caminero would face Lugo again, and this time it was a mid-80s slider that caught too much of the heart of the strike zone. Caminero launched this one 387 feet, with the ball coming off his bat at 107.5 mph — 6-0, Rays.

With the game already well in hand in the eighth, Caminero strode to the plate again. Here, he faced position player Tyler Tolbert, who was throwing batting practice in the mid-40s. He, at least, avoided leaving a pitch over the middle of the plate for Caminero, but that didn’t stop the third homer of the day from coming. It might have been at the bottom of the zone, but this was still 47 mph where Caminero’s bat could get to it.

Caminero is now up to 19 homers on the year a season after hitting 45 of them, and batting .285/.377/.519. He already has four more walks than he did all of last season and has a higher batting average, too — the power hasn’t been exactly what it was, but he’s been a better overall hitter. And it’s also clear that the power hasn’t actually gone anywhere yet:  this is probably a good place to point out that Caminero had 22 homers after the All-Star break last year, or, one fewer than in the first half in 28 fewer games.

The Red Sox and Yankees matched up for the start of a four-game series on Thursday, and in Boston once more, where the Sox were swept by New York last time the two faced off. Boston has struggled at Fenway this season — it’s just 13-25 there — and also in general, while the Yankees are in first in the AL East and look like the class of the junior circuit even without Aaron Judge around.

In the first game of this series, though, it was the Sox that came out ahead. Down 2-0 in the fifth, DH Masataka Yoshida walked against Cam Schlittler, and then center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela singled. First baseman Willson Contreras would reach on a fielder’s choice while Yoshida scored on an error by third baseman Amed Rosario, then left fielder Jarren Duran would tie the game with a sac fly. 

Schlittler was nearly out of trouble, but then third baseman Caleb Durbin went yard for his sixth homer of the year, giving the Red Sox a lead they would not relinquish.

None of the runs against Schlittler were earned, and a sac fly and fielder’s choice are difficult to get worked up about, but that homer was still very real and stung the Yankees. New York would get a run back in the seventh on a ground out by DH Paul Goldschmidt, but Boston would score two more in the eighth and win, 6-3. The loss earned the Rays a game in the standings, putting them just two back of the Yankees in the AL East, but cheer up, New Yorkers: the Yankees get to play three more at Fenway, and the Sox aren’t due for another win there for a couple of weeks, right?