Two nights after calling out to himself and his teammates that they all needed to increase the urgency and incite the offense, Bryce Harper chewed it all up in the Phillies’ 9-2 win over St. Louis. Louis Cardinals. and windy Citizens Bank Park Friday night.
Harper scored a second innings of six runs with a two-stroke twin and was on a base when JT Realmuto beat a two-stroke in the seventh club.
The win improved the Phillies to 7-6 after a poor road trip that left them losing five of six games in Atlanta and New York. The six runs the Phils scored in the second innings were two more than they scored in three games in New York, all lost.
It was a breakthrough the Phils needed.
“To be able to come here and do the things we could do tonight, just to put the ball in the game, to have fun, to enjoy what we did, it’s a great game, it’s a lot fun to play, “Harper said afterwards. “You know, our series, if we hit on all cylinders, is a lot of fun to watch. I’m excited to go in tomorrow and hopefully take this momentum as a team and do our thing.”
Zach Eflin plays the role of hill stopper after the Phillies lost three in a row. The right hand had a strong five-tone mix, finished eighth, had no run and hit six.
Harper loved what he saw.
“Wow,” he said. “I’m never shocked when he does. I think people who see him every fifth day know he has it in him. The stuff is there. The way he goes out there and competes, when he’s that sinker at work. “That slider is absolutely disgusting, it’s fun to watch. He’s always a competitor. He wants to be good. He’s going to be a guy for us.”
Eflin has allowed just three runs in 14-plus innings on his own this season.
“He was great tonight,” manager Joe Girardi said. “We needed it.”
After losing the third on Wednesday night in New York, Harper was critical of himself and the team’s offense, especially the high number of passes. The Phils hit 14 times in the game and Harper conceded three of them.
On Friday night, the Phils cut the number of strikes in half.
Maybe Harper’s pep talk worked.
Girardi must have liked it.
“I like it because I think it resonates when it comes to a guy like Bryce,” Girardi said. “He’s not one to necessarily cover it. He included himself. He had the big doubles and swung the bat exceptionally well tonight. But I like that (that Harper spoke to him). I think the feeling of urgency is important as we found out last year, so I like it. ‘
Avoiding strikes and putting the ball in the game helped the Phils send 12 men on the board in the second innings. It could have easily been a 1-2-3 innings, but the Cardinals field could not make two plays on difficult but not impossible ground balls, and midfielder Dylan Carlson loses a ball in the wind and twilight that for An RBI doubles match.
“It’s a lot nicer when you score runs,” Girardi said. “We talk about it all the time. If you don’t score runs, a team looks flat, there just’s not much going on. So it was a different atmosphere, because we swung the bats better and took advantage of their crimes.”
Struggling captain Andrew McCutchen, who entered the game and hit .139, drove in three runs with a few hits.
“He’s been through hard times, but I do not care how many times you’ve been through them, it’s not fun to go through,” Girardi said. “He’s very important to our offense by walking ahead and climbing on the base, driving in runs. It was a good night for him. I think it was an important night for him.”
If it were not for the wind, Harper would have had an even bigger night than he did. In the first and fourth innings, he hit balls against the wall in the right center and the center, respectively, which came at 109 and 108 km / h from the bat. On a quiet evening, both balls might have ended up in the Italian market.
“On a normal night, he probably has two runs and a twin,” Girardi said. “But not tonight. The weather will change. I like the way he swung the bat. ‘
After the wind knocked down his ride to right-center in the first inning, Harper stood at the first base with a look of amusement and surprise on his face.
“I came to the bench to hit homers and it just did not happen,” said Harper, who has two homers this season, both on their way.
“That wind is cruel. But I can do nothing about it. Put the bat in the best way, but control what I can, and Mother Nature is not one of them.
“But I feel good. I felt good in the box. It’s just getting pitches across the board to do damage and then walking. I really liked mine (walking in the seventh), some nearby places there I did not have.I have to get back in the rhythm of the pitch and hit the one over the plate.These last few series I know I could walk 10 to 11 times easily but I just did not do it ‘must go in again, do damage over the plate and have better innings, see stands and climb on the base by walking and not just by hitting all the time.’
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