Last Night In Baseball: The Phillies Are Thriving, The Mariners Are Not

The Phillies capped an MLB-best month. The Cubs hit nine homers to set records. A catch you have to see to believe. Monday’s MLB action provided all that and much more. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: The Phillies took on the Diamondback on Monday, which was bad news for Arizona. The D-backs were half-a-game up on the Padres for the third NL wild-card, emphasis on the past tense there: Philadelphia would win, 2-1, and push Arizona back out of a postseason spot. It’s the fifth win in a row for Philly, its 14th in the last 16 games, and wrapped a 21-7 August that’s the best in MLB. The Braves went a perfectly reasonable and competitive 17-11 in the same time frame, and saw the Phillies narrow the gap between the two in the NL East by four games. This one wasn’t a matter of Philadelphia dominance, however, but a close one: Aaron Nola threw five innings with just one run allowed, and the bullpen took it from there with four scoreless. Third baseman Bryson Stott hit a solo homer in the top of the second to make it a 1-0 game… …and then right fielder Bryce Harper made it a 2-0 game with his 28th double of the year in the next inning. Harper extended his on-base streak to 33 games with the two-bagger, and it ended up being the game-winning hit in the end: Arizona could only manage that one run against Nola, and was shut down by a full complement of Philly relievers — Philadelphia ran five different ones out there to handle the final four innings. The Phillies are 78-60, tied with the Cubs for the top wild-card spot in the National League. They also have a better record than all but two AL teams — the Rays have more wins, while both Philly and Chicago are tied with the Yankees. The NL certainly feels loaded this year. The Orioles aren’t in a position where they can’t afford to lose any games, but as one of six teams within six games of the last wild-card spot in the AL, currently held by the Guardians, Baltimore can’t exactly waste opportunities with less than a month to go. The O’s very nearly did waste an opportunity on Monday, when, in a 2-1 game in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on and two outs, reliever Andrew Kittredge threw a sinker middle-in to Rockies’ center fielder Jake McCarthy… and McCarthy hit it 425 feet to center at nearly 103 mph. As far away as that was, McCarthy’s counterpart on the Orioles, Colton Cowser, was there. Look at this grab. A catch worthy of every post-grab fist pump, that’s for sure: Cowser not only got up to grab it, stretching himself to the limits — look at the jump he had to do to get there! — but held onto it as he fell back to the ground. Kittredge’s face says everything that Cowser’s reaction didn’t cover. The game ended on that play, and the O’s picked up half-a-game on idle Cleveland to move to half-a-game back of the third wild-card spot. The opening game of Cubs-Brewers didn’t disappoint. Well, if you’re a Cubs’ fan, anyway. Chicago won, 17-3, in a rout powered by nine — yes, nine — home runs. MLB was kind enough to put all nine of them together in a single video. Three of those were hit by third baseman Alex Bregman, who now has 23 long balls on the season after bashing a dozen of them in August alone. This was his second three-homer game of the month, even. Outfielder Tyrone Taylor had one, as did left fielder Nico Hoerner. Seiya Suzuki bashed his 24th dinger of the season, while catcher Carson Kelly logged his 10th. Second baseman Matt Shaw launched one, and finally, Michael Conforto, who entered the game in the eighth as a defensive replacement in left, went yard, too. It was a history-making game for the Cubs, as nine homers in one is a franchise record. The 62 homers Chicago hit as a team in August is a National League record, too, and Bregman’s pair of three-homer games is the first time any Cubs player has done that in 22 years, since Aramis Ramirez in 2004. Somehow, Milwaukee still has the best run differential in the majors after that beatdown. That’s a good team right there, even if the Cubs made it seem otherwise for a night. How the Mariners have Mariners’ fans feeling of late, in one tidy image. Can you blame them? Seattle came into Monday’s game against the Red Sox having lost four in a row, erasing the gains from a 7-3 stretch that had them in the AL West and wild-card mixes, and then blew a 7-4 lead by giving up two runs to Boston in the eighth, and then the game-tying run in the ninth. On a beautiful slide by the recently returned Roman Anthony, sure, but still. Here’s another angle of that slide — it merits it. The Red Sox pushed the game into the 10th with that run, and closer Aroldis Chapman threw a clean frame with two strikeouts to put Boston in position to win. And it did: second baseman Nick Sogard bunted lead runner Wilyer Abreu over to third to open the inning, then after a pair of intentional walks to load the bases and create a force anywhere, shortstop Trevor Story came to the plate. Story has had a tough season even when he wasn’t on the IL, so the free passes were understandable, but they also didn’t pay off. With one out and the bases loaded, Story just had to avoid a double play. And he did, by singling in the walk-off run. The Mariners are now 5.5 back in the AL wild-card race and six back in the AL West — their season isn’t over yet by any means, but this is quite the hole to be in, lagging behind five other teams for the last wild-card. The Braves had won seven in a row, and an eighth felt like a distinct possibility with the Giants the next opponent on the schedule. But baseball more than any other sport works in probabilities: San Francisco would be the winner here, and convincingly, taking down Atlanta 7-3. Giants’ DH Rafael Devers got the scoring started in the first with a home run, his 30th of the season — a 403 footer off Bryce Elder, who ended up responsible for five of San Francisco’s seven runs. That’s the fifth 30-homer season of Devers’ career, and it’s worth pointing out that he just didn’t have it in April, but has otherwise been Rafael Devers: since May 3, he’s batting .265/.355/.554 with 28 of his 30 homers, and 27 doubles. He has a .908 OPS over his last 105 games and 451 plate appearances despite being a left-handed power hitter in the second-worst park in the majors for that very thing, per Savant. Atlanta’s lead in the NL East over Philadelphia is now just four games. That’s both a cushion and not much of one, considering how well the Phillies have been playing, but, Monday aside, the Braves have also been playing great, too. The Rangers picked up a win they needed, disposing of the Athletics, 8-1. It was a lineup-wide effort on the offensive side, but as far as the pitching goes, one Jacob deGrom gets the flowers. deGrom went seven innings while allowing just one run, striking out eight A’s while ceding a single baserunner on one hit. deGrom had a tough start a turn ago, giving up eight runs and an uncharacteristic five walks in 3 ⅔ innings against the White Sox, but this is more like the guy the Rangers need if Texas is going to sneak into either the AL West crown or a wild-card spot. Right now, it’s two games and 1.5 back of those, respectively.