In Sam Raimi’s 2009 horror flick Drag Me To Hell, a woman makes a mistake at work and is eventually condemned to eternal damnation for it. This is highly relatable for the Nationals’ bullpen arms, wh0 made a mistake at work and were sentenced to hell for it. Well, surrendering a pinch-hit go-ahead homer to a team down to their final strike isn’t quite hell, but it’s close enough; I’m fairly certain Dante mentioned it somewhere in his Inferno, somewhere between the guy who’s eternally having his head bitten and the guys who are eternally trees.
But before the drama of a last-ditch comeback repeated, a less appealing narrative recurred: Aaron Nola’s struggles with the long ball continued, as Luis García Jr. took a sinker that hung up in the middle of the zone to center for a 1-0 Washington lead in the first. An inning later, Jorbit Vivas took a curveball that did the same and did the same. 2-0, Nationals. Meanwhile, the Phillies struggled through three against opener Carson Palmquist, putting only one baserunner aboard in the form of Brandon Marsh, who promptly got picked off.
Marsh was also the Phillies’ second baserunner, singling up the middle to lead off the fourth. Afterwards, Palmquist’s opening job was over, and Miles Mikolas took his turn. He quickly found trouble. Alec Bohm reached safely on a grounder when Nasim Nuñez booted it, and Bryson Stott hit a fly ball that found its way over James Wood’s head in right for a double. The Phillies had their first run of the night. They had their second on a sacrifice fly from J.T. Realmuto, and their third on a single from Gabriel Rincones Jr. Nola kept the good vibes going with a three up, three down fourth. Only a potential injury to Bohm, who came up limping while running the bases on the fourth, still needled the Phillies, and given that he remained in the game, this turned out not to be a big issue. The Nationals seemed like they might have a big issue though: the pitching of Mikolas, who gave up singles to Trea Turner and Marsh in the fifth. He fought his way through it without further damage, but the tilt of the game still seemed to favor the Phillies.
Kyle Backhus took over in the sixth, with Nola’s final line standing at 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 5 K. Backhus faced the minimum of three, getting two out and allowing a baserunner, and was pulled for Jonathan Bowlan as Don Mattingly played the matchup game, pitting righty against righty. It did not go as planned. The first pitch to Curtis Mead went flying into deep left, towards the foul pole, remaining fair and ending the Phillies’ lead.
José Alvarado took the seventh. He got the first two batters out, but faced trouble with José Tena, who hit a shallow fly to left that Marsh dove for and missed. The result was a triple. CJ Abrams was up next; the duel between him and Alvarado saw a quartet of fouled off 3-2 pitches , and finally a walk. But Alvarado got the next batter out to keep the deficit at one.
But the Phillies offense remained stagnant, unable to put a runner aboard in the eighth. Seth Johnson was tasked with the ninth and keeping the game within reach of more last-ditch heroics. A simple 1-2-3 inning set the Phillies up well for the sequel to yesterday’s fireworks. Realmuto, Rincones, Jr. and Edmundo Sosa were the trio tasked with setting them off. Their opponent was Orlando Ribalta. He shares his name with the great knight of both myth and history (also known as Roland); unfortunately for the Phillies, the game took place at Nationals Park and not Roncevaux Pass. Realmuto grounded out, Rincones Jr. struck out. But then, high drama: Kyle Schwarber, who was left out of the starting lineup thanks to back tightness, was called in to pinch hit for Sosa. He took the first pitch for a ball, swung and missed at the second, took the third, but saw it called for a strike. Once more, the Phillies were down to their final strike. A poorly-advised challenge from Nationals backstop Drew Mills on ball 3 brought some levity to the proceedings, but soon enough it was tense again. He fouled off some pitches, one of which got enough air to stop some hearts, momentarily. He ended up walking, bringing Garrett Stubbs to the plate as a pinch-hitter, and as the winning run. But he didn’t stay there long: the Nationals swapped pitchers (to Richard Lovelady, less useful for references to epic poems) , Stubbs was swapped to the pinch-runner role, and Derek Hill got the call to bat.
When the Phillies traded for him, I noted that whoever got the first recap in which he did something notable would get the glory of the Running Up That Hill pun title. Last night, writing the question of the day post, I got impatient and wasted the pun on the subhead. As Hill sent a poorly-placed fastball over the wall in right-center, I sincerely regretted this. Thank god Kyle Schwarber had been more patient than me. Once more, the Phillies had gone down to their last strike and struck back.
Thus, Jhoan Duran was called in to bring it home. He did, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of strikeouts. The final strike was a close one on the corner; the Nationals challenged. Or tried to. They were out of challenges, and so all they had was a plaintive head-tap. The Phillies had crested the Hill, and found victory on the other side.
The Phillies are 44-36. They’ll conclude the series against the Nationals tomorrow at 6:45.
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