The Philadelphia Phillies, the last playoff team to clinch its spot in the regular season, are halfway to being the last team standing.
The host Phillies became the first team to clinch a League Championship Series berth Saturday afternoon, as Brandon Marsh hit a three-run homer in the second inning to key an 8-3 win over the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of their National League Division Series.
“You’ve got to beat the champs to be the champs,” Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper told Fox Sports 1 immediately after the game.
The Phillies, who won the best-of-five series 3-1, will play the San Diego Padres in next week’s NL Championship Series. The Padres defeated the Dodgers 5-3 later Saturday to advance.
“We’ve got two more (rounds), right?” Harper said. “Eight more games.”
It will be the first trip to the NLCS since 2010 for the Phillies, who took an eventful path to the newly expanded 12-team playoffs. Manager Joe Girardi was fired following a 22-29 start. Even four strong months under Rob Thomson left Philadelphia with the worst record of any playoff team and in third place in the NL East, 14 games behind the Braves and New York Mets, each of whom won 101 games.
The Phillies were three outs away from losing the opener of their NL wild-card series against the St. Louis Cardinals before scoring six runs in the ninth to earn a 6-3 win. It was the largest ninth inning ever in the playoffs for a team that trailed entering the inning. Philadelphia completed the sweep of the Cardinals the next day and outscored the Braves 24-13 in the NLDS, including 17-4 in the two games in Philly.
“We had ups and downs during the season, just like any other club does,” said Thomson, who was signed to a two-year extension earlier this month. “But they knew that they were going to come out of it at some point and start winning again. And we did.”
The Phillies’ postseason run is a familiar one for the Braves, who won the World Series last season after entering the playoffs with the worst record of any participant.
But the Braves, who had the best record in baseball (78-34) after June 1 and edged out the Mets to win the NL East via the head-to-head tiebreaker, became the 22nd straight World Series winner to fall short of a repeat. The New York Yankees, who won three straight titles from 1998 through 2000, are the most recent back-to-back champion.
“You never know what’s going to happen — you don’t know what team’s going to get hot, what things have to go right for you to go deep into the postseason,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It didn’t happen for us this year.”
Braves starter Charlie Morton (0-1) wriggled out of a first-and-third, none-out jam in the first before the Phillies jumped ahead in the second. Alec Bohm led off with a single off Morton’s elbow and went to third on Jean Segura’s one-out single, after which Marsh, the ninth-place hitter, homered to right.
The Braves cut the gap in half on Orlando Arcia’s one-out homer off Noah Syndergaard in the third, but catcher J.T. Realmuto led off the bottom half with an inside-the-park homer against Collin McHugh after Morton could not continue after trying to warm up.
Realmuto’s long fly to the left-center-field wall eluded center fielder Michael Harris II and the ball caromed into right-center. Harris chased the ball down with no assistance from right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. as Realmuto raced around the bases for the first inside-the-park homer by a catcher in MLB postseason history. It was also the first Phillies inside-the-park homer ever in the playoffs.
Matt Olson homered against Andrew Bellatti with one out in the fourth, but the Braves got the tying run to the plate just once before the Phillies added three insurance runs in the sixth via back-to-back-to-back RBI singles by Rhys Hoskins, Realmuto and Harper.
Travis d’Arnaud homered for the Braves in the seventh, but Harper hit an opposite-field shot in the bottom half to make it 8-3.
Seranthony Dominguez, the Phillies’ sixth pitcher, struck out the side in a 1-2-3 ninth — whiffing d’Arnaud to end the game and set off a wild celebration at the pitcher’s mound.
The victory was awarded to Brad Hand (1-0), who tossed a scoreless fifth. Syndergaard surrendered the only hit by Arcia while striking out three over three innings.
Morton, who left after his warmup tosses in the third, gave up the three runs on four hits and one walk while striking out three over two innings.
–By Jerry Beach, Field Level Media
