The Phillies will not go anywhere this season if their stars don’t get hot, but if they go far enough, they’ll need even more than that. To win a World Series, an early playoff round or even a mid-July three-game set against the team with the second-best record in baseball, they’ll need more than stars.
The Phillies’ stars, outside of Bryce Harper, sputtered on Tuesday. They won anyway because of Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm. On Wednesday, they produced, with Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto and Bryce Harper each driving in a run and Kyle Schwarber scoring one.
But sometimes, you need more than stars. Enter: Jake Cave and Edmundo Sosa.
The bottom two spots in the Phillies’ lineup showed out on Wednesday, combining for three hits, two runs, two RBIs, a home run that broke a tie and a superb catch that avoided one in the Phillies’ 6-4 series-grabbing win over the Baltimore Orioles.
Jake Cave has found himself in somewhat of a professional baseball purgatory this season, lighting Spring Training and Triple-A on fire but turning ice cold in the Majors. Cave got the start in left field anyway on Wednesday, with Harper at first base, and he made it count.
After Adley Rutschman gave Ranger Suárez and the Phillies an early deficit with a three-run homer in the third, Cave responded by putting the Phillies on the board with an RBI double in the bottom half, then scoring on Castellanos’ eventual RBI single to make it 3-2.
The next inning, Realmuto doubled Bohm and Stott home after a pair of singles to double the Phillies’ scoring and turn that one-run deficit on its head.
Cave singled later in that fourth inning for his second hit, but it was the sixth where he made arguably his greatest impact on the night. With Jordan Westburg on second as the tying run, Ramón Urías lined a ball into deep left field that looked like a game-tying double.
Until it got swallowed up by a Cave.
The Orioles did eventually tie the game in the top of the seventh, but that’s where Sosa took over. After lacing what would’ve been a game-tying homer just a few feet to the wrong side of the right-field foul pole, the Phillies’ shortstop — starting for a struggling Trea Turner — straightened out the very next pitch for a go-ahead blast.
Harper added an RBI single, scoring Schwarber, a few batters later. It provided a key insurance run for Craig Kimbrel, whose first blown save of the season on Sunday preceded his second loss of the season on Monday.
This time, Kimbrel was nails, striking out two in a perfect eighth. Gregory Soto picked up where Kimbrel left off, closing out the win with a perfect inning of his own.
After Monday’s abject disaster of a loss, it’s quite the impressive series victory for the Phillies over the now-62-38 Baltimore. It moves the Phillies into a three-way tie — however temporary — for the three National League Wild Card spots.
They’re 55-47, six days out from the trade deadline.
Ticket IQ Next Game
- Friday, July 28 vs. Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park
- 7:05 p.m. ET
- TV: NBC Sports Philadelphia
- Radio: SportsRadio 94 WIP
- Spanish Radio: WTTM 1680
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