The Phillies began their western road trip in Seattle against the Mariners – the only team with a longer playoff drought than us. They needed to bring their bats on this trip. The ball hasn’t exactly been “going boom” this season, at least not consistently or as much as we all thought it would.
Game One
The first of three in this series was definitely worth staying up for (thanks, west coast). Let’s talk about the pitching first since they shutout the Mariners. Ranger Suarez pitched a very solid six innings. He notched 11 strikeouts with two hits. Francisco Morales gets sent in for his rookie debut, and you really couldn’t have asked for a better result. He pitched for two innings and notched three strikeouts with one walk. A nine-run lead was enough for James Norwood as he closes it out and gets two strikeouts.
Onto our favorite part: the hitting. It was nice to see the offense click this game as much as it did. The first inning came and went for both teams, then bam, back-to-back home runs for our Phils. Jean Segura mashed a one-run homer 411 feet to straight centerfield. Rhys was up to bat next and decided to join the home run party by hitting a 76 MPH curveball 364 feet to left field. After that, the Phillies decided to hit some baseballs around the rest of the ballpark, 15 different spots as a matter of fact, to bring the hit total for the game to 17. Overall, this game was entertaining.
Game Two
Right as I’m suckered back in, they rip my heart out… again. The first inning ended with Seattle being up 2-0. That’s definitely not an ideal start for our ace, Aaron Nola. The second inning wasn’t too kind either, as Seattle added one run onto their lead. The Phillies finally woke up in the fifth inning with two runs including a Castellanos home run into deep left field, which made the score 2-3. The sixth inning saw the Mariners adding two runs to their lead with an error from Rhys and a CJ Crawford sac-fly. Rhys made up for the error by mashing another home run, this time 468 feet to left field to make it 5-3. Jean Segura made things interesting by mashing a 401 home run to center field in the ninth inning, but the Mariners unfortunately managed to not blow the lead and the final score was 5-4.
Game Three
This game brought criminally low expectations, but sort of proved us wrong. It was a bullpen game because Zack Wheeler was placed in Covid protocol, and normally that spells disaster for the Phillies. This time, however, I’m more than pleased with the results.
The first two innings weren’t anything special aside from Bailey Falter keeping it a 0-0 game. The Mariners scored one run to cap off the third inning and never saw the lead again. Rhys Hoskins blasted a home run 367 feet to the left-most part of the field. The best part? It was a grand slam. I guess Rhys likes hitting in the west or something because he was on fire this series. The Mariners scored a run in the eighth inning, but that’s it. The pitching in this game is the second biggest story.
Bailey Falter started the game and went 4.2 innings with four strikeouts, five hits, one run, and no walks. He did a lot better than expected if I’m being honest. Seranthony Dominguez relieved Falter and went 1.1 innings with one hit, two strikeouts, and a win. Jose Alvarado came in after Seranthony and went .2 innings with one run, two walks, and one strikeout. After Alvarado came Jeurys Familia who went one inning with two hits and one strikeout. Corey Knebel was sent in with two outs in the eighth inning to shut the game down. He had two strikeouts and the save.
Overall, this was a very pleasant beginning to the road trip. The next series is 4 against the deadly Los Angeles Dodgers. It’ll be a tough series, but they just lost a series to the Pirates. We can do it, we just have to make ball go boom.
Very enjoyable reading.