ATLANTA – Two long droughts for the Phillies ended Thursday night
J.T. Realmuto had its first home run since May 3, and Aaron Nola played brilliantly for his first win since day one as the Phillies closed out the four-game with a 4-1 road victory against the Atlanta Braves.
The victory saw the Phillies break the series with the Braves. Both teams are 21-24 and 7 ½ game behind the NL pre-leading New York Mets. The Phillies started the three-match series against the Mets in New York on Friday night.
“It’s too big,” manager Joe Girardi said of the split. “It’s a difficult place to play. They are past winners. They are a very good team. We needed it. We need to play better on the road. Now we are going to New York. Both of these teams are in our division. You need more than luck to succeed in affiliate business. ”
Phils are 10-11 on the street. Lefty Bailey Faulter will come from Triple A to start Friday night’s game in New York. Zach Eflin and Zack Wheeler will play Saturday and Sunday nights, respectively.
The Phillies and Mets have played nine times before this season, with the Mets winning six.
Thursday’s victory, which prevented the Phillies from dropping a season-high five game below the .500, came after playing a sloppy ball on Tuesday and Wednesday night, and hit their bullpen hard in both games.
Nola limited Bullpen’s performance with Ratna – 8 1/3 innings of one run, walk-free ball. He hit five shots and 10 shots. The Phillies had earlier lost eight straight starts with Nola on the mound.
“He played great,” said Girardi. “It simply came to our notice then. He was great. ”
Nola had the backing of his batterymate, third-innings Realmuto and center fielder Odubel Herrera, who added two runs for the seventh wicket to extend Phillies’ lead to three.
Kyle Schwarber took just one wicket for 11 runs in a four-match series, but he contributed to the Phillies’ rally at number seven with a two-out walk against Braves starter Kyle Wright. Wright then hit Realmuto on the pitch and Atlanta manager Brian Snyder brought in lefty Will Smith along with Herrera. Herrera congratulated Smith on his first pitch double with two runs.
Phils ran in the eighth when Nick Castellanoss doubled home Bryce Harper. The double by Castellanos was his second extra-base hit in a 12-game period, thus reducing another drought.
These four runs would have seemed like an explosion to Nola, who entered the game with 64 strikeouts, second in the NL and 0.994 with WHIP, but support for the ninth-worst run in the league. Phillies had zero runs, while Nola had entered four of his nine matches.
“He’s just as unfortunate a victim as any pitcher you have,” Girardi said.
All of Nola’s problems this season were due to a lack of run support. Mistakes on the plate and inability to keep the hitter away with two strikes and two outs is a bug from the previous season, and in his previous match against the Dodgers, he had scored three two-outs on homer and two outs. Double run. Both hits came on full-count pitches.
If Nola had made some mistakes Thursday night, it would have been hard to unravel and hit the Braves hard. He used his sinker and curveball very effectively. He generated 15 swings and misses, 10 on his curveball.
“Sinker felt better than usual,” Nola said. “Curveball got better as the game went on.”
“I can’t say enough about how he threw the ball,” Realmuto said. “He got out early, put the ball down and gave Penn a rest. He actually pulled his sinker out of the plate and drove it back to the right. “
Regarding the long range of victories, Nola said, “It’s baseball. It’s going to happen. I just want to go deeper, save the bullpen and drop as many zeros as possible and whatever happens happens. “
What happened on Thursday night was that Nola took a shutout at number nine and gave Phyllis a crucial victory. On 109 pitches, he left the game with a one-out double to ninth-ranked Matt Olson. Olson finally scored on Corey Nebel’s wild pitch, winning the final two wickets.
