Nola-Turner Overdrive: Phillies 8, Tigers 3

The good vibes from the weekend rolled along into the work week as one of the streakiest teams in baseball kept its heater alive against the frisky Detroit Tigers.

Before the game, John Middleton and Dave Dombrowski presented Phillies Daycare legends Nick Maton and Matt Vierling with their NL championship rings. More from Maton later.

The Phillies immediately got to work against Tigers starter Joey Wentz with leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber drawing a walk and Nick Castellanos singling to right to get things started. The wind turned what looked like a Bryce Harper three-run bomb into a long flyout to center field. Then, Trea Turner - hitting cleanup today for the third game in a row - knocked a single off of Javy Baez’s glove to drive in the game’s first run. 1-0 Phillies.

In the bottom of the 2nd, Castellanos drove in Dalton Guthrie on a double down the left field line to make it 2-0.

In the third, we got a Trea bomb:

And another in the fifth:

Those are Turner’s 6th and 7th of the year, finally surpassing his total from the World Baseball Classic. For the game, he went 4-5 with 3 RBI. I don’t want to say he’s back yet - he’s had at least two big games earlier in the season where I thought that - but the Trea Turn-around is certainly gaining some steam. Maybe Trea, like Kyle Schwarber, just needed the first two months to get all the mistakes out.

Only slightly overshadowed by Turner’s big day was Aaron Nola, who looked every part of his ideal self. He struck out five straight over the first two innings and faced the minimum number of batters through six, only allowed two baserunners on walks. He struggled a little in the 7th as he approached and surpassed 100 pitches, giving up all three of the Tigers’ runs on a home run from…who else?

Nola turned around and got out of the inning, ending his day with his 12th strikeout to tie his career high set on 6/25/21 against the Mets.

Is this finally the beginning of a strong run for this team? Have they finally started to shake off the losing energy that has hung over them like thick smog from the jump? Well, maybe. They’ve had a few two-game offensive outbursts so far this season that haven’t particularly led anywhere but, given what we know about how much this team loves the month of June, they’re certainly off to a good start.