Because we all knew it would happen: Phillies 7, Braves 2

Hey, you.

Yes, you there, looking at this.

You knew this was going to happen right? After getting embarrassed at home by the Cubs, you knew the Phillies were going to take the series from the Braves right?

Because this is how this team works. They frustrate you when they play the lowly teams on their schedule, then come right back against one of the better teams in the game and take the series from them. In the past, it was the Marlins that usually would stomp on the egos of the Phillies, but when it was Chicago, it felt like it was a little different. Maybe it was the fact that some could brush it off as a bad weekend, but the vibes weren’t completely bad that the Phillies were out of anything just yet.

Having split the first two games of the series, they sent Kyle Gibson to the bump to oppose Charlie Morton. The former you would have looked at that pitching matchup and found something more constructive to do with your summer afternoon. Read a book, do some gardening, lay by the poolside, anything other than watch a purely lopsided pitching matchup that tilted in favor of Atlanta. Present you knew that Gibson would go toe to toe with Morton through the first four innings, a few walks from Gibson here, a sprinkle of singles against Morton there.

Then the bottom of the fifth inning arrived and the Phillies woke up, just as we knew it would.

A walk to Bryson Stott, followed by an error on a pickoff throw, put a runner in scoring position for Alec Bohm. Former you would have expected a ball on the ground that didn’t advance the runner. Present you knew that the way Bohm was hitting, scoring was a foregone conclusion.

Didi Gregorius followed by reaching on an error by Robinson Cano and the Phillies were in business. Odubel Herrera singled, driving in Bohm and putting runners on the corners. Kyle Schwarber hit a sacrifice fly to make it 3-0, then was followed up by a steal of second by Herrera. A walk to Rhys Hoskins put a runner on first, then both of them stole on Morton, putting both Herrera and Hoskins in scoring position. J.T. Realmuto continued swinging a hot bat, singling and driving both runners in and the Phillies suddenly had a 5-0 lead on Morton and the Braves.

At this point, former you would have been expecting a Gibson implosion, but present you was comfortable in the fact that he was in command all day long, save for a two-run home run by Matt Olson. Gibson didn’t have much in the way of hard hit balls, again, outside of the home run, and the Phillies went to the bullpen with a 5-2 lead.

The bullpen continued their stellar work, the combination of Connor Brogdon, Brad Hand and Andrew Bellatti giving them three innings of shutout baseball that secured the win for the Phillies. The offense tacked on a few runs in the sixth inning, courtesy of a Bohm RBI double and a sacrifice fly by Gregorius and the team had a win and a series victory.

Just as we all knew would happen.