That’ll do: Phillies 11, Yankees 7

You know, among all of us who write here at The Good Phight, we kind of wrote off Monday’s game of this series. Coming off a one week layoff to face Gerrit Cole seemed like an impossible task, so we were really looking forward to this and the subsequent games to see if the Phillies could do some damage. In game one of the doubleheader, they didn’t disappoint.

It started off weird when they took the field as the visiting team wearing their home pinstripes. Then the starter, Zack Wheeler, didn’t exactly light it up to begin the game. In the first inning, he was let down by his defense when DJ Lemahieu, who led off the game with a single, was able to get to second on an error by Jean Segura instead of the Phillies turning a double play. Aaron Hicks walked to load the bases with nobody out, but Gleyber Torres grounded into that double play, this time it getting turned properly, but a run did score and the Yankees led, 1-0.

In the second inning, Brett Gardner continued to torment this Phillies with the juiced ball home run, this one a two-run shot that made the score 3-0.

The Phillies would begin their comeback in the top of the third inning. It began with Bryce Harper, who hit a two-run blast and cut the score to 3-2.

Then JA Happ forgot to throw strikes. Literally.

After the Harper homer, Realmuto walked, then Segura singled. Scott Kingery walked, Phil Gosselin walked and the Phillies got another run and tied it at three. Roman Quinn grounded into a fielder’s choice and the Phillies took the lead, 4-3. Happ had 50+ pitches in the third inning alone. It wasn’t good and he departed the game.

In the fifth inning, the Phillies tacked on another when Realmuto led off the inning with a solo shot, adding to the ledger and making the score 5-3.

In the sixth, the wheels came off for the Yankees. Apparently, in baseball, you need to hit the ball, you need to pitch the ball, and you need to catch the ball. The Yankees forgot this part. This is what the inning looked like for those Yankees:

• Quinn single
• Jay Bruce single
• McCutchen walk
• Hoskins single (Quinn scores)
• Harper safe on fielder’s choice (Bruce and McCutchen score on throwing error)
• Realmuto singles (Hoskins scores)
• Segura fielder’s choice
• Kingery singles (Harper scores)
• Gregorius singles (Segura scores)
• Quinn safe on fielder’s choice
• Bruce grounds out

It was one of those innings that makes you wonder how teams can be as good as the Yankees when they do things like that, but hey - happens to the best of us.

All while the Phillies were scoring 11 unanswered runs, Wheeler kept on dealing. After the first two innings when he gave up four hits, a walk and three runs (two earned), Wheeler only allowed two more hits and a lone walk over the next four innings. He continued to help himself by inducing two groundball double plays on the day, which is something we haven’t seen consistently from in this rotation in quite some time outside of Aaron Nola. He was masterful yet again and continued to prove that the team’s investment in him was worth it.

It was a game that wasn’t exactly close after that sixth inning by the Phillies, so naturally the bullpen decided to make it close. Today, it was Austin Davis’s turn to try and muck things up. In the bottom of the seventh, the last inning in 2020 for doubleheaders, he managed to allow singles to Mike Tauchman, Gardner and Thairo Estrada, giving them one run, before Aaron Judge blasted a three-run home run and made the score an uncomfortably close 11-7. Then Trevor Kelley decided to give it a go. He allowed back-to-back singles to Aaron Hicks and Tyler Wade.

Then Mike Ford came up. On a 3-2 pitch, Angel Hernandez announced his presence with authority.

Hector the Protector got the last out on one pitch and the day was saved.

Phew.