June 4, 2023 – Phillies 11, Nats 3

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202306040.shtml

 

Time: 2:57

Attendance: 29,546

 

Another way to put it: a win for the Phillies fans (like me) who were there, and a loss for the Washington fans who continue to loudly boo former Nat Bryce Harper. (Admittedly, Bryce wasn’t a big factor in Philadelphia’s victory, although he did have a double and drew two walks.)

 

The game was close for the first five innings. Neither starting pitcher managed a 1-2-3 inning, but both mostly managed to pitch out of trouble. J.T. Realmuto kicked off the scoring with a 2nd-inning home run off Washington starter Trevor Williams. Two innings later, the Nats tied things up when Joey Meneses led off with a triple and scored two batters later on Stone Garrett’s sac fly. The visitors answered right back when Drew Ellis, who was just called up when Alec Bohm when on the IL, took Williams deep.

 

Things turned for good in the top of the sixth. After fanning Realmuto, Williams issued a four-pitch walk to Brandon Marsh. He recovered to strike out Kody Clemens, but Ellis beat out an infield single to put two men on for leadoff hitter Kyle (“Mr. June”) Schwarber. With Williams at 101 pitches, Davey Martinez elected to go to the bullpen, although Williams had struck Schwarber out in two of his previous three times up. Andrés Machado came in, and Schwarber did what he does, putting the visitors on top 5-1.

 

It only got worse for the Nats from there. Philadelphia added 3 more off Machado in the seventh, highlighted by Ellis’s third major league home run (and second of the afternoon). Schwarber added an exclamation point with another three-run shot in the top of the ninth. Meanwhile, Ranger Suárez put together an efficient one-run, 7-inning outing to notch the win.

 

I took advantage of the absolutely perfect weather to stroll down to Sweetgreen for lunch, then walked by the river to head to the park. I also took a post-game walk to (successfully) avoid the peak post-game crowds on Metro. The subway was also surprisingly empty on the way down, although I left 5-10 minutes earlier than usual.

 

And the escalator behind Section 301 was, to my amazement, working after the game! Quite an afternoon.