PITTSBURGH — The Phillies and Pirates battled it out until the very end on Friday, which obviously is more impressive feat for the Pirates, who entered the game with a 40-59 record, than it is for the Phillies. But the Phillies came out with the 4-2 win, nevertheless, in dramatic fashion.
Starter Bailey Falter gave the Phillies one of the best starts of his young career, but the Phillies’ offense largely was dormant, putting up only eight hits and two runs through nine innings on Friday night. The game stayed tied at 2-2, thanks to scoreless performances in the eighth and ninth inning from José Alvarado and Seranthony Domínguez, and went into extra innings, when their offense heated up.
With Garrett Stubbs as the automatic runner on second base, Rhys Hoskins crushed a two-run home run 410 feet to center field to give the Phillies a 4-2 lead. Alec Bohm followed that up with a single, and Nick Castellanos added a single of his own to send Bohm to third base with one out. Matt Vierling grounded into a double play, but reliever Connor Brogdon held down the lead with a 1-2-3 10th inning, and the Phillies got the win. They now are 53-47.
Bounce-back outing from Falter
Interim manager Rob Thomson had some kind words for Falter before Friday’s game, words that proved to be prescient.
“We’ve had a couple of pretty good starts (from Falter),” Thomson said. “The one in Seattle, and there was another one earlier in the season. If he comes out and he hits his spots with his fastballs and mixes his pitches and throws strikes and gets ahead, stays ahead, he’s an effective guy.”
Falter was coming off of a few bumpy starts; in his last outing on July 24, he gave up four earned runs against the Chicago Cubs in five innings. But he seemed to clean things up considerably against the Pirates.
Falter went six innings, allowing five hits (one home run), two earned runs and one walk with eight strikeouts. Like Thomson said, he was hitting his spots and was efficient with his pitches. By the time he exited the game, he was at 80 pitches and 56 strikes.
Falter’s six innings pitched and eight strikeouts were career highs for him. Unfortunately for Falter, it was on a night that the Phillies’ offense struggled to show up.
Bats silenced by Quintana
After clobbering 15 hits and eight runs the night before, the Phillies bats largely were silenced Friday night. They only tallied four hits, two walks, and were held scoreless Pirates starter José Quintana, who is, ironically, a pitcher who could be a target for the Phillies ahead of the Aug. 2 trade deadline.
After his start on Friday, Quintana has a scoreless streak of 12 2/3 innings pitched, and a 3.23 ERA over his last seven games, so the Phillies’ struggles against him were understandable. They had better luck against the Pirates bullpen, which has the third-worst ERA in baseball (4.62). After Quintana exited the game in the sixth inning, Kyle Schwarber drove in an a run in the seventh, launching a hard-hit RBI single that looked like it was destined to land in the right-field bleachers. In the next at-bat, Hoskins drove in another run with an RBI single of his own to tie it at 2-2.
A few milestones
Nick Castellanos hit his 300th double in the top of the eighth inning. Alec Bohm extended his hitting streak to a career-high 14 games, with a line-drive single to left field in the top of the sixth inning.
