The Philadelphia Phillies are doing admirably in all areas, resulting in the finest 50-game start in franchise history.
Edmundo Sosa, J.T. Realmuto, and Bryce Harper all homered as the Phillies beat the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers 11-4 on Wednesday.
Philadelphia will now seek its second consecutive series sweep when it hosts the Rangers on Thursday. The Phillies had recently completed a three-game sweep of the Washington Nationals.
The Phillies are 36-14 and have not lost one of their previous 15 series.
“I’ve been playing this game for a long time,” Realmuto stated during a postgame interview with NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of a team his complete and has this much fun.”
Alec Bohm hit a two-run double and now leads the Major Leagues with 46 RBI. Realmuto also extended his hitting streak to 12 games in a row.
“When people make mistakes, you have to take advantage,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson stated.
While the blazing start has been impressive, the goal now is to continue winning.
“You’ve got to keep grinding, keep pushing,” Thomson advised.
Matt Strahm, Gregory Soto, Orion Kerkering, and Jose Ruiz combined to pitch 4 1/3 innings of effective relief. The one flaw was Soto giving up a solo home run to Corey Seager.
“They all have really good stuff,” Realmuto explained. “They all throw strikes.” We have a lot of faith in these individuals.”
The Phillies will start Zack Wheeler (5-3, 2.52 ERA).
Wheeler has made five career starts against the Rangers, going 1-2 with a 2.43 ERA.
The Rangers will try to end a three-game losing slide when they face the Phillies in the series finale.
Seager had two hits, one of which was a solo home run, while Leody Taveras also had a solo homer and Josh Smith had two hits and two RBI.
However, Texas went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position and struggled defensively, making four errors.
The Rangers have slumped two games below.500 and barely resemble the team that won a championship not long ago.
“You’ve got to flush it,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy explained. “It was very ugly. There is no getting around that. We failed to handle the ball. We are better than this. We discussed it briefly. The only way I know is to work harder and continue to push here. That is all you can do.
“Just remind them that they’re resilient and it’s going to be up to us.”
Andrew Heaney (0-5, 4.43) is set to start for the Rangers.
In his last start against the Los Angeles Angels, Heaney allowed five hits and three runs (two earned) in 3 2/3 innings. It was his shortest start of the season.
“Pitches caught up to him more than anything else. “I didn’t want to push him too hard here,” Bochy explained. “I had some poor luck. Stuff was pretty excellent, but I got away from it as the game progressed.”
Heaney is 0-1 with a 9.00 ERA in one career start versus the Phillies, dating back to 2014 as a Marlin.
When Dane Dunning was activated to start Wednesday’s game, Cole Winn was optioned to Triple-A Round Rock. Winn has an ERA of 6.91 in 11 bullpen appearances.
