Buddy system: Phillies 13, Twins 2

That was just mean.

The Phillies welcomed the Minnesota Twins to town for alumni weekend with an absolute thrashing.

The theme of the evening was back-to-back everything (hereafter referred to as “B2B” in the interest of compendiousness).

It was feast or famine early for starter, Cristopher Sanchez. Four of the first six outs he recorded came via punch outs.

But of the four hits he allowed in the first two innings, three went for extra bases including B2B home runs to Twins’ designated hitter, Jorge Polanco, and right fielder, Max Kepler.

The Phillies quickly erased the deficit in the bottom of the second by beating up on Twins’ starter, Dallas Kuechel. Nick Castellanos and Bryson Stott led off the inning with B2B doubles followed by an RBI single by JT Realmuto.

A walk to Weston Wilson and a hit-by-pitch sustained by Edmundo Sosa loaded the bases for Johan Rojas, who brought home Realmuto via a questionable fielder’s choice decision by Twins’ shortstop, Carlos Correa.

Kyle Schwarber, Alec Bohm and Trea Turner each collected an RBI while turning over the batting order by going single, sac fly, single before Castellanos recorded his second hit of the inning, a single that chased Kuechel from the game after just 1.2 IP. Twins’ reliever, Josh Winder, got Stott to fly out to end the assault, not before 11 batters came to the plate and six had crossed it.

Sanchez recovered from his shaky second inning with a quick top of the third, recording his fifth K and fielding a comebacker to initiate a TWIN killing.

After B2B walks by Schwarber and Bohm to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning, Turner got his second hit of the night in the form of an RBI double. Bohm would score on Castellanos’ third hit of the night and Turner completed his trip around the bases on a sac fly by Stott.

Stott continued his big night with a one-out solo shot in the bottom of the sixth inning. Realmuto went yard two pitches later. B2B.

Things got plain silly toward the end. Down by nine runs, the Twins sent out reserve outfielder, Jordan Luplow, to the mound in the bottom of the eighth. He actually retired the first two batters he faced before hitting Edmundo Sosa on the butt with a 50 mph slider to bring Rojas to the plate.

Luplow got the crowd going with a Craig Kimbrel wind-up impression before delivering his hardest thrown pitch of the inning, a 70 mph change up for a strike.

On the next pitch, Rojas annihilated a 47 mph slider to left field for his first major league home run.

Sanchez went six innings, allowing six hits, three walks and collecting five strike outs, with just two runs from the B2B solo homers in the second inning. Jeff Hoffman pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning and Dylan Covey pitched two scoreless innings, striking out the side in order in the top of the ninth to end it.

Since “the ovation”, Turner is 13 for 31 (.419 BA) with six doubles, two home runs, 10 RBI and seven runs scored. He has also hit in six different slots in the batting order in these eight games, none of which were the two hole (starting with tonight’s game he’s hit 3-6-1-4-7-6-8-8).

After starting with a four for four night at the plate with two walks, two singles and two runs scored, Schwarber fouled a ball hard off his back foot and collapsed in a heap of pain. He’s a tough dude. Something to worry about.

The Phillies will look to take the series with a win tomorrow night at 6:05pm. Taijuan Walker will face off against Pablo Lopez.