Coincidence or not, Bryce Harper's first inning back in the Phillies' lineup in a week was their most explosive inning in a week, a six-run outburst that enabled them to cruise to an 8-3 victory in Toronto.
Harper donned a new elbow guard with a sleeve over it and took a nice, easy swing on an 0-2 pitch from Blue Jays right-hander Bowden Francis to hit his ninth homer of the season in his first at-bat since last Tuesday. He went back-to-back with Trea Turner, who preceded with a two-run shot.
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WATCH HEREThe Phillies kept pouring it on with an RBI single from Max Kepler and a two-run knock by Bryson Stott to put Cristopher Sanchez up by a touchdown (no PAT) before he even stepped on the mound at Rogers Centre.
The lineup has a way of falling into place when Harper is occupying his usual spot. It creates such a grueling top-of-the-order with Turner in front of him and Kyle Schwarber behind him. Turner homered twice. He has seven, all of them on the road, and is hitting .305 with an .815 OPS.
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SIGN UP "I was messing with Kyle and messing with Trea that when I hit behind Trea, he's way better, need to keep Schwarbs in that four-spot," Harper said on the broadcast postgame. "Trea's such a dynamic player. He hits for average, everything. Just fun to watch him."
Harper missed five games after being hit by a 95 mph fastball on the right elbow. It was swollen for several days, then came the bruising, but Harper was finally able to swing and throw by the weekend. He was not wearing an elbow guard when he was hit by Spencer Strider last week but will wear one moving forward. He tested it out again in spring training but then stopped using it.
"There's times where I'm OK with it, there's other times where it feels kinda weird," Harper said last week. "We found a brace that I wore during the Tommy John, so I'll probably wear that again and a brace on top of that just to kinda feel it out. It's really hard to find braces that feel good. I haven't really worn them my whole career, I have here and there just to feel it."
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Maybe he'll be convinced by the immediate results.
The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Phillies, who are 37-23 and entered the night 1½ games behind the Mets. They've had only two losing streaks this season longer than two games and responded to the other by winning 23 of 29.
Sanchez walked a season-high four and found himself on the ropes during a long fifth inning. He's walked at least three batters in five of his last seven starts after doing so only six times in his previous 41 starts.
A timely mound visit from Caleb Cotham with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth appeared to settle him down. Sanchez had just been all over the place in walking George Springer, and Cotham's advice might have been not to start Alejandro Kirk with the sinker he's waiting for. Toronto was down six at the time so it was certainly an opportunity for a hitter to ambush. Sanchez threw him two changeups for strike one and a groundout.
The lefty gave up one run over six innings and is 5-1 with a 3.15 ERA. It's been an interesting couple of months for Sanchez. He entered the night with the same ERA as last season (3.32) but with substantially higher rates of strikeouts and walks. He's pitched with added velocity this year, which is a part of it.
The Phils have Mick Abel and Jesus Luzardo going the next two nights, big starts for both. Abel is looking to show his impressive MLB debut (6 IP, 0 R, 9 K vs. Pit) was no fluke. The Blue Jays will be a much tougher test for Abel than the Pirates, who are equivalent to a Triple A lineup minus Oneil Cruz, Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen. Luzardo is eager to move on from the worst start of his career.
