Bryce Harper Finally Homered: Phillies 9 Padres 4

Unfortunately, Tom McCarthy and John Kruk did not broadcast tonight’s game shirtless. Fortunately for the San Diego Padres, Ha-Seong Kim took three balls and a strike for a leadoff walk.

Kim would take off and after a Juan Soto strike out on a splitter, not only did he take second but after a bad throw from Garrett Stubbs, he took third. Fernando Tatis Jr hit a groundout to Bryson Stott to make it 1-0.

Taijuan Walker struggled to get the final out of the inning, however. First came his second walk of the inning to Manny Machado after some ineffective splitters. Then came Xander Bogaerts with a base hit to center.

Walker eventually worked out of the two-out jam unscathed with a flyball to right field. However, he threw 29 pitches and the bullpen is very thin after the first game of the doubleheader.

It took until the fourth inning for the Phillies to respond and more importantly, to get a former MVP to respond.

Bryce Harper hit his first home run in 38 games and while there certainly were other chances that homer would’ve been nice, that one was important.

Alec Bohm couldn’t bring home Trea Turner in the first and the others behind him haven’t reached base. The offense has been painful to watch most of the time and they’re in desperate need of a savior.

The fifth inning was a different story, however. With two strikes to Rougned Odor, Walker threw a cutter right down the middle that the umpire completely missed. On the next pitch, Edmundo Sosa had a chopper go off his glove and into left field which put Odor at second.

After getting Austin Nola out, Trent Grisham slapped a single just past a diving Stott to give the Padres a 2-1 lead. Walker worked out of it getting Kim to fly out and Soto to ground out.

He battled through diminished velocity, an erratic strikeout, and three walks. Not to mention poor defense. With Walker at 96 pitches and arms like Yunior Marté, Matt Strahm, and Craig Kimbrel unavailable after game one, it was Andrew Bellatti who Rob Thomson called upon.

The Padres carried what most people would call momentum. They just took the lead, Weathers was throwing strikes, and the bottom of the order was due up. Momentum is fickle and the Phillies began to show life.

To the surprise of the Padres for some reason, Garrett Stubbs laid down his sixth bunt hit of the season. Johan Rojas then took a changeup right back up the middle for his first-ever career hit.

Kyle Schwarber was selfish and decided to overshadow Rojas’s outstanding achievement, 4-2.

Back to Bellatti, he was put into a tough spot against the heart of the Mount Crushmore lineup. He got ugly swings from Tatis and Bogaerts to record flyouts but was very lucky Machado just missed a deep fly to center.

The Phillies kept adding on in the seventh; once again, it was the bottom of the order doing the job.

Stott beat out an infield chopper leading to a seeing-eye single from Sosa to left center field to put runners on first and third. After a Stubbs strikeout, Rojas laid a perfect bunt back to the pitcher’s mound.

Due to Adrian Morejon’s finish off the mound, he could not field the bunt to prevent Stott from scoring.

After Schwarber barely got under a changeup, Turner’s roller coaster of a day continued with a base hit to right, making it 6-2. He would then be picked off with Castellanos up.

The seventh inning got ridiculous, from missed calls to some bad Sosa breaks, it was a circus. First, the home-plate umpire tried to charge Stubbs of a timeout but Brent Honeywell wasn’t even looking at him.

Then Sosa was hit in the hand and after the trainer came out, was ok enough to stay in the game. Next, he cramped up turning back to second before advancing to third.

The Phillies sent nine guys to the plate and recorded just two hits, Honeywell was probably a little tired from the early game and couldn’t locate his fastball.

Gregory Soto came in to wrap up the ninth. If you’re wondering why it’s Soto, he hasn’t pitched since July 9 and needed work. He allowed a run on a wild pitch but got three outs to give the Phillies a doubleheader sweep.

The final game of this series begins tomorrow at 1:35 with Zack Wheeler taking on Seth Lugo, who signed with the Padres as a starter this off-season after being a reliever for the New York Mets.