SEATTLE — For weeks, some in the Phillies clubhouse have wondered what they did to anger the spirits that govern this game. They had not played good baseball. Everyone acknowledged it. But there was a greater force testing the Phillies. It seemed like every break went against them. They didn’t pitch when they hit. They didn’t hit when they pitched. They blew lead after lead.
Then, in the seventh inning of a one-run game Sunday afternoon, Mariners cleanup hitter Jorge Polanco launched a ball to deep center. Brandon Marsh saw it, then he didn’t. He drifted to a spot 384 feet from home plate.
“I literally had my arms out,” Marsh said, “and the baseball gods put the ball right in my glove.”
It happened. The Phillies won a game. This wasn’t an exorcism, but after a 6-0 victory, it was hard to avoid the coincidences. Marsh made a miracle catch. Six minutes later, Bryson Stott homered. Then Bryce Harper, wearing high socks to change his luck, slugged a two-run homer. Alec Bohm went back-to-back with a solo shot.
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Does Marsh believe in the higher powers?
“I might now,” he said. “That was a crazy, crazy turn of events.”
“Crazy,” Harper said. “Never seen anything like that. Never seen anything like it.”
“Yeah,” Trea Turner said, “I believe in it a little bit.”
Whatever it takes.
“I really didn’t think much of it,” Nick Castellanos said. “Just, he made a great play sticking with it. And then we were able to hit some balls hard that got over the wall. We scored some runs.”
That works, too. The Phillies believe in Zack Wheeler, an ace who did his job. He stopped the bleeding with eight dominant innings. Sunday’s performance was Cy Young Award-type stuff and lowered his ERA to 2.77. His team needed him in a big way. Before every game, Phillies manager Rob Thomson will ask his pitching coach, Caleb Cotham, for a prediction on that night’s starter. Cotham said Wheeler would give them eight innings.
Wheeler obliged. He was in the dugout after Marsh’s catch as the Phillies batted around. There was a sense of relief, Marsh said. Wheeler disagreed.
“It felt normal,” he said.
Normal — for the Phillies — is good.
“You want to feel like a good team. Right?” Wheeler said. “We’re a good team. We’ve been losing a lot, and things haven’t been going our way. But, when they do, we’re kind of like, ‘Here we go again.’ We’re back to back to normal. Hopefully, we just start going back up.”
Zack Wheeler allowed no runs and struck out nine in eight innings. (Steven Bisig / USA Today)
Marsh is one of the more cheerful personalities in the clubhouse, and he admitted this recent stretch has challenged even his positivity. The Phillies had lost six straight. They had dropped 13 of 17 games. Even with the win Sunday, they have dropped six straight series. Their divisional lead is a hearty six games, but it was much bigger a week ago.
“This game will show you who you really are,” Marsh said. “It’ll humble you and lift you right back up like today. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been a tough week for us. The vibes and morale are still up. We like to try to keep it as high as we can. But it’s a very tough game. It’s a hard game. I’d like to say we’re a phenomenal team, but phenomenal teams go through stints like we went through.”
Marsh, after a cathartic win, was full of deep thoughts.
On roaming the outfield Sunday at T-Mobile Park: “The sun was a little crazy today. I felt like every inning it was in a different spot.”
On how he lost track of the ball: “My vision literally started fading. I mean, you stare at the sun for five seconds, you start losing vision.”
On why he didn’t attempt to protect his body: “I was going to let it hit my face. The only chance I had to catch it was with the palms up. Yeah, man. Better to be lucky than good sometimes.”
The Phillies at least felt better about things before a three-game series this week at Dodger Stadium. Harper had three hits Sunday, more than he had in the 11 previous days combined. He had better at-bats Saturday night, when he hit an opposite-field double to cap a 12-pitch at-bat. He loves playing at Dodger Stadium — where he made his big-league debut in 2012 and where he made his dramatic return from Tommy John surgery last season.
Maybe he’s timed it right.
“I know when I play better, our team’s better,” Harper said. “Obviously, it’s not going well for a lot of us right now. But the quicker we can turn that page — knowing we’re still the best team in baseball, knowing we got a great record, knowing that we got all the guys in here that we need — we just have to keep going.”
Bryce Harper went 3-for-4, including a two-run homer in the eighth. (Steven Bisig / USA Today)
That’s been Marsh’s goal in an uneven season. He is not an everyday player; the Phillies expected he’d be one by now. He has barely faced lefties since the middle of May. But he has four hits in his last four at-bats against them — including a single in Sunday’s rollicking eighth inning. He does not look as overmatched as before.
There is a reason.
“I feel at the beginning of the season, I was putting a lot more pressure on myself to get hits against those guys to prove that I can do it,” Marsh said. “And now, it’s just like, go up there and have fun. Whatever happens, happens. Stick to your approach. Be stubborn to it.”
Thomson is stubborn to his guys. He won’t change his lineup. He will stick with what brought the Phillies here. His players appreciate that. Maybe the spirits will reward them for that. After Marsh made his catch, he pointed to the sky.
“That’s to the baseball gods,” Marsh said. “Thank you. Appreciate you.”
They could laugh again.
“I think these guys have been frustrated and grinding,” Thomson said. “And, now, they see something come out of it. So, I think it’ll be a pretty happy flight going to LA.”
But the baseball gods only have so much compassion. That flight to Los Angeles was delayed by more than an hour. The club’s charter plane had a mechanical problem.
(Top photo of Brandon Marsh, Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott after the win: Liv Lyons / Associated Press)
