The Phillies beat the Padres 6-2 Thursday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park to complete their second sweep of San Diego in a week.
Season series: 6-0 against the Padres.
Wheeler threw seven innings of two-hit ball with eight strikeouts. Garcia hit a ball 429 feet and bat-flipped it into the shadow realm. The offense scored six runs, which feels like a headline that shouldn’t need to be written but here we are because the Phillies hadn’t scored five or more in a game since May 18th.
Phillies went 13 games without scoring five runs.
The lowest batting average in baseball during that stretch at .189. The lowest OPS at .590. An average of 2.46 runs per game, also the worst in the sport. And the Phillies went 7-6 in those 13 games because the pitching was so absurdly good that two and a half runs per game was enough to win more often than not.
That’s the 2026 Phillies. Historically great pitching dragging a historically bad offense to wins by the slimmest margins imaginable.
Mattingly knows it. He said after the game “I don’t think we can think we’re going to win every game 2-1 or 3-2. It’s going to be important for us to be able to tack on runs.”
Yeah. No shit. You think?
Wheeler Was Disgusting
Seven innings. Two hits. Two runs. Three walks. Eight strikeouts. Sixteen swings and misses, his most since his second-to-last start before the injury last August. He carried a no-hitter through 5 1/3 innings. The Padres have the worst batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in baseball and Wheeler still made them look like they’d never picked up a bat before.
The game plan was the four-seam fastball and he rode it at a 55 percent clip. His highest usage rate of the season by a mile. Against a Padres lineup stacked with seven right-handed hitters, Wheeler attacked with the heater nearly 60 percent of the time. The velocity sat at 95.8 mph on average. He threw it for a first-pitch strike 71 percent of the time. Five of his eight strikeouts came on the four-seamer, his most of the season.
When Wheeler has command of the four-seamer and leans on it, the rest of his six-pitch mix opens up because hitters can’t sit on anything. Everything plays off the heater. The splitter looks nastier. The sweeper gets more chase. The slider bites harder. Wheeler with his full arsenal working off a commanded fastball is one of the best pitchers alive.
Thursday was that version.
The only damage was a Machado two-run homer in the seventh on a four-seamer that hung. One mistake in seven innings. Wheeler’s ERA sits at a level where he and Sanchez are both legitimate Cy Young candidates and the Phillies have the best one-two punch in baseball. That’s not debatable anymore.
Garcia Pimped a 429-Foot Homer and I Loved Every Second of It
Adolis Garcia has been one of the worst hitters in baseball this season. Coming into Thursday he had the eighth-lowest batting average among qualified hitters at .195 with a .578 OPS that ranked fourth worst. Mattingly dropped him to the eight hole. The hitting coaches have been working with him constantly trying to find the swing that made him one of the best power hitters in the American League two years ago.
Thursday, he found it. At least for one at-bat.
Garcia got ahead 2-0, took two fastballs, and then got a hanging 76 mph breaking ball. A mistake pitch. The kind of pitch that Garcia has been failing to punish all season. This time he didn’t miss. He crushed it 429 feet at 109 mph off the bat. Bat flip. Both arms extended. Full pimp job before starting the trot. When asked what was going through his mind, Garcia smirked.
Alright buddy. Just do it a bit more often because you’re hitting .195 and that was your first homer since May 6th.
Either way, that at-bat and that reaction were exactly what the Phillies needed from him. Garcia is a confidence hitter. When he feels it, the power shows up and the whole lineup gets deeper.
The Phillies desperately need Garcia to produce from the right side. If the homer and the double are the start of something, the lineup looks significantly more dangerous.
If it’s a one-day blip and he goes back to .195, the trade deadline conversation for a right-handed bat gets louder. Either way, watching Garcia pimp a 429-foot bomb was the most fun I’ve had watching a Phillies at-bat from the right side of the plate in weeks.
The Seventh Inning Was What This Offense Has Been Missing All Year
Forget the homers for a second. The seventh inning Thursday was the most encouraging offensive sequence the Phillies have produced in a month.
Crawford walked. Stole second. Reached third on an errant throw. Turner singled the other way to drive in a run. Harper singled. Marsh knocked in Turner on a fielder’s choice. Bohm drove in a run with a single. Three runs in the inning without a single ball leaving the yard. Small ball. Manufacturing runs. Putting the ball in play with runners on base. Moving guys over. Making things happen without sitting around waiting for someone to hit a three-run homer.
That’s the inning the Phillies have been searching for. For 13 games, the offense had been completely one-dimensional. Homer or nothing. If the ball didn’t go over the wall, the Phillies didn’t score. Thursday in the seventh, they found another way. Crawford’s legs created the opportunity. Turner’s opposite-field approach drove in the run. The lineup strung together professional at-bats and turned a 3-0 lead into a 6-0 cushion.
The Phillies are 24-10 Under Mattingly. Four Games Over .500. In a Playoff Spot.
The Phillies are 33-29. Four games over .500 for the first time this season. Twenty-four wins in 34 games under Mattingly. They finished 6-0 against the Padres on the season and swept the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Those tiebreakers could matter in a tight Wild Card race. As of Thursday afternoon, the Phillies hold the third and final National League Wild Card spot.
A month ago this team was 9-19 and the season was over. Now they’re in a playoff position with the best pitching staff in baseball, a closer who strikes out the side in one-run games, and an offense that finally scored more than four runs for the first time in two weeks.
The pitching is sustainable. The offense needs to keep building on what the seventh inning showed Thursday. More manufactured runs. More small ball. More opposite-field singles and stolen bases and situational hitting. Less reliance on waiting for someone to hit a homer.
The formula of great pitching plus just enough offense has gotten the Phillies to this point. Getting to October and surviving October requires more than just enough. Thursday was a step in the right direction.
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