PHILADELPHIA — Bryson Stott stutter-stepped across home plate. He gave a two-handed high-five two Alec Bohm and elbow-bashed with Kyle Schwarber. Then, as Stott walked down into the dugout, he was met by Rhys Hoskins, arms aloft and jumping up and down.
By golly, the Phillies were actually having fun.
OK, so maybe it was all a coincidence. Or at least a confluence of events. But after seeing Joe Girardi get fired earlier in the day, the cold-blooded reality of a high-payroll team with a losing record, the Phillies welcomed the freefalling Los Angeles Angels to town and throttled them, 10-0, in the sort of five-homer power display that was supposed to be their trademark this season.
Kyle Schwarber homered twice, including on the first pitch of the game from Angels starter Chase Silseth. Bryce Harper went deep twice, too. And then there was Stott, whose first major league home run was a three-run shot off Silseth in the second inning to open a 4-0 lead for Zach Eflin, who went eight shutout innings.
It took 52 games and cost the manager his job, but the Broad Street Bashers finally showed up.
Now, how long will they stick around?
Powered by a season-high five home runs, the Phillies won the first game of the Rob Thomson era after president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski decided to dump Girardi and install the longtime bench coach as interim manager. But it also came at the expense of Jersey Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and the star-studded Angels, who dropped their ninth consecutive game after a 27-17 start.
It will be weeks, maybe months, before we know whether the Phillies’ first in-season managerial change since 2015 is the defibrillator that shocks them back into playoff contention. More likely it will come down to other factors, such as shoring up baseball’s worst defense and protecting more late-inning leads.
The schedule will have something to do with it, too. After a brutal 31-game stretch in which they played 28 games against the New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves, and San Francisco Giants, the Phillies face a much softer slate of upcoming opponents. Beginning with the swooning Angels, and excepting a three-game series in Milwaukee next week against the NL Central-leading Brewers, they play 16 of the next 19 games against noncontenders.
But the Phillies will win when they hit, and did they ever hit in the opener against the Angels? How much? Try 1,960 feet of home runs.
“We need to be a good hitting club,” Dombrowski said earlier in the day. “That’s how we’re put together. We’re a top-10 team in the league. I think we can be better than that. That’s how we were constructed.”
Young guns
Can anyone remember the last time a homegrown Phillies player hit a home run with two other homegrown Phillies on base?
It doesn’t happen often.
As much as anything, the Phillies got a jolt from their youngest players. In addition to Stott’s homer, center fielder Mickey Moniak singled in the second inning. Fill-in second baseman Nick Maton walked, tripled, and made a full-extension diving catch on a pop fly to shallow right field that caused him to leave the game with a sprained right shoulder.
It will be interesting to see if the young players thrive more under Thomson than Girardi, whose unrelenting intensity didn’t always provide the most nurturing environment. If the first game was any indication, Thomson isn’t afraid to use them. The bottom four hitters in the batting order were all homegrown: Alec Bohm, Maton, Stott, and Moniak.
Eflin deals
It got lost in the offensive outburst, but Eflin dominated the Angels, scattering five hits and racking up six strikeouts in eight innings to lower his ERA to 3.88.
The only hint of trouble against Eflin came in the first inning, when Taylor Ward led off with a single and went to third on Jared Walsh’s two-out single. But Eflin got Luis Rengifo to fly out to keep the Angels off the board and set the stage for Schwarber’s first-pitch homer.
Getting defensive
The Phillies’ defensive struggles are well-documented. But they played a clean, crisp game for Thomson, even mixing in a few highlight-reel plays.
Maton’s catch was a show-stopper. But maligned outfielder Odúbel Herrera entered late in the game and made a diving catch to snare a sinking liner from Trout to end the eighth inning.
