PHOENIX — For all the granularity that can be parsed in nine innings of baseball, the sum total can at times feel alarmingly simple.
If you ruthlessly take advantage of your opportunities at the plate, stretch long at-bats even against good pitchers and put the ball in play, good things happen. The Phillies’ 10-run outburst in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series showed that.
If you don’t have productive at-bats, if you make a rookie pitcher look like a young Curt Schilling and you pick up just three hits in a ballpark where longballs are less likely to save you, things will be tougher.
In most aspects Thursday, the Phillies did enough in Arizona to take a stranglehold on the NLCS. But just three hits against Diamondbacks pitching let Ketel Marte’s walk-off single pick Arizona up off the mat with a 2-1 win in Game 3.
“It was a pitcher’s duel throughout that whole game,” Bryce Harper said. “We finally got one and they got one and they were able to capitalize on stuff that we weren’t able to capitalize on. I thought both guys threw really well today, and sometimes that’ll happen.”
The Phillies did too little at the plate in a matchup that on paper was in their favor, especially with the momentum of two wins at Citizens Bank Park. But the Phillies did precious little against Brandon Pfaadt, who tossed 5.2 scoreless innings. They worked only three walks, two by Harper, whom the D-backs had little interest in pitching to. They stuck out 13 times and grounded into a pair of double plays.
For the most part, Phillies pitching held up its end of the bargain. Ranger Suarez threw into the sixth without giving up a run. His 5.1 scoreless innings lowered the ERA of Phillies starting pitchers to 1.35 over 51.2 innings this postseason. His ERA in his first five career postseason starts dropped to 0.94, the lowest in MLB history, beneath guys named Sandy Koufax (0.95) and Christy Mathewson (1.06).
The bullpen had its missteps, but they only proved decisive because of the absence of a safety net. Orion Kerkering had his first bad outing as a big leaguer, allowing all three batters he faced to get hits in the seventh inning. The damage was limited by a brilliant escape from Jose Alvarado with three outs from three pitches, including a double play. But the lack of a shutdown inning after the Phillies went up 1-0 gave life to an Arizona team that could’ve been dead and buried.
Even so, the Phillies kept the Diamondbacks largely in check. They had nine hits, most of them off Kerkering and losing pitcher Craig Kimbrel. Even so, the offense has mounted just four runs in three games.
Defensively, the Phillies were spectacular. Gold Glove finalist Bryson Stott dove in the hole and Suarez covered first for a 4-1 putout in the sixth, giving Jeff Hoffman a chance to enter and extinguish a threat.
Trea Turner turned an outstanding double play in the seventh off the bat of Emmanuel Rivera while successfully looking Lourdes Gurriel back to third. In the ninth, Turner corralled a hot shot and fired to the plate to hose Gurriel, J.T. Realmuto missing the tag the first time through but diving back to swipe Gurriel before he could slap the plate.
That, though, would only delay Marte’s third hit of the day to center, driving in Pavin Smith for the walk-off.
“Trea made a ridiculous play to keep us in it,” Kimbrel said. “I got ahead, I felt like I made some pitches to try to get us out of it. Some days you get them, some days you don’t. And today just wasn’t our day.”
The Phillies pitchers kept room open for a rally that never came. Pfaadt delivered 5.2 innings of two-hit, shutout ball, walking none and striking out nine. The start from the rookie, who has plus stuff but a 5.72 ERA in his first season in the bigs, was a balm for a pitching staff that had seen its top two arms battered in Philadelphia. None of the Phillies had seen him before in the big leagues.
“He threw strikes, mixed his pitches well, kept us off balance,” manager Rob Thomson said. “It’s a guy we haven’t seen before, so it’s a little bit different. But I thought he did a good job, and I think our hitters will be ready to go tomorrow.”
The Phillies didn’t have two men reach base in the same inning until the seventh, when Harper walked and Alec Bohm nubbed an infield single to third. It still took some generosity from Arizona to push a run across, Ryan Thompson’s wild pitch finding the backstop and Harper scampering home on the wild pitch.
Game 3 was a missed opportunity, especially with Suarez executing so well. The Phillies offense would seem to have the upper hand again in Game 4, Cristopher Sanchez going against a bullpen mashup fronted by Joe Mantiply, who got roughed up in Game 2.
But that will only work to the Phillies’ advantage if an offense that has been so outstanding this postseason can avoid another no-show.
“Tonight was a really close game,” said Brandon Marsh, who doubled in the third, the Phillies’ only extra-base hit after 12 in the first two games. “Really good pitching on both sides, and they just scored one more than we did. We’re going to flush it and move on to tomorrow.”
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com.
Source: Berkshire mont