WASHINGTON — The Phillies’ furious ninth-inning comeback on Tuesday night hadn’t required their home run leader.
On Wednesday, he got it started. But not with a home run.
Kyle Schwarber emerged from the visitors’ dugout in the ninth inning with the Phillies staring down a one-run deficit to the Nationals. He had been on the bench for the past two days with low back tightness that popped up minutes before Tuesday’s game.
With two outs, he represented the Phillies’ last chance. And Schwarber battled for 10 straight pitches, working a walk from Orlando Ribalta to put the tying run aboard.
And then, Derek Hill worked some magic. The outfielder came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for Justin Crawford, and after fouling off two pitches, he launched a two-run shot to right field. It put the Phillies in front for the 5-4 win over Washington.
In both at-bats, the Phillies were down to their last strike.
The Phillies once again fell behind early, after the Nationals built a 2-0 lead on solo home runs off Aaron Nola in the first and second innings. Washington stacked eight lefties — including two switch-hitters — in their lineup against him. But by the time the Phillies offense jumped ahead in the fourth, Nola appeared to find a rhythm.
He got ahead in the count more often, throwing first-pitch strikes 62% of the time. Nola successfully shut down Nationals star James Wood in all three of his plate appearances against him, striking him out in the third inning with a knuckle curve. It was one of five total Nola recorded over five innings.
Lefty Carson Palmquist started the game for the Nationals, going 3⅓ innings before passing the baton to righty Miles Mikolas for another 3⅓ innings. The Phillies mustered just two singles against Palmquist, and both of them came courtesy of Brandon Marsh.
Once Mikolas took over with Marsh standing on first, the Phillies started to make things happen. Alec Bohm fouled a ball off his foot and appeared to be in some pain, but remained in the game and reached on an error. Bryson Stott followed it up with a double to right field that scored a run.
A sacrifice fly brought Bohm home, and Gabriel Rincones Jr. drove in a third run with an RBI single up the middle.
As Curtis Mead entered the game as a pinch-hitter against Phillies lefty Kyle Backhus in the sixth, interim manager Don Mattingly already had his countermove ready. He took the ball from Backhus, and summoned Jonathan Bowlan from the bullpen. As a righty, Bowlan had the advantageous matchup on paper against right-handed hitting Mead.
It immediately backfired. Bowlan served up a first-pitch sweeper to Mead, who blasted it over Marsh’s head and into the left field seats.
But a similar countermove worked out for Mattingly in the ninth, when he used Hill as a pinch-hitter. Nationals manager had just brought in Richard Lovelady to face lefty Crawford, and Mattingly countered with Hill, a righty.
After Hill’s go-ahead homer, Jhoan Duran struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth to earn the save.
Father’s Day will hit a little differently this year for Don and Preston Mattingly. After years of working in baseball for different teams, often on opposite sides of the country, they are together with the Phillies as the first father-and-son manager-and-GM combination ever. Preston Mattingly joins Phillies Extra to discuss working with his dad, as well as the Phillies’ decision to demote Andrew Painter to the minors and their preparations for the trade deadline. Watch here.
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