National League\u2019s top 10 for strikeouts per nine innings <\/a>with Wheeler, Jesus Luzardo and Sanchez.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Blue Jays opened the scoring vs. Sanchez in the second inning. Nick Castellanos\u2019 leaping attempt to catch Ernie Clement\u2019s fly ball to the right-field fence was unsuccessful. Myles Straw drove Clement in with a two-out line drive that glanced off the tip of Alec Bohm\u2019s glove on its way to left field.<\/p>\n
Despite a couple of long fly balls in the early innings, the Phillies failed to reach base against Toronto starter Bowden Francis until nine-hitter Brandon Marsh knocked an opposite-field single. Francis found a groove, locating well and mixing in his off-speed pitches effectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The righty\u2019s command dramatically deserted him in the fourth inning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Phillies rallied with two outs through simple patience; Francis walked three batters and hit two. Otto Kemp\u2019s HBP put the Phils up 2-1, Francis exited, and Brendon Little jogged in from the bullpen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Little threw a 1-2 breaking ball to Marsh in the dirt and J.T. Realmuto made the aggressive decision to sprint home. The gamble didn\u2019t pay off. Jays catcher Tyler Heineman recovered the ball in time to tag Realmuto out at the plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sanchez and the Phillies narrowly missed a shutdown inning. The Phils couldn\u2019t quite turn an inning-ending double play on Bichette \u2014 the Blue Jays won their challenge to overturn the initial out call \u2014 and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then ripped an RBI double to deep right-center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Phillies were unable to cash in on Marsh’s leadoff single in the fifth. Kemp lined out to right field with two outs and runners on the corners in the sixth. <\/p>\n
Outside of Kepler’s dinger, the Phillies’ top six batters had zero hits in the game. <\/p>\n
Kepler rendered those struggles irrelevant with one powerful swing, lacing a Chad Green fastball into the seats. <\/p>\n
Phillies\u2019 plans at first\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kemp has played the Phillies\u2019 past three games at first base. Phillies manager Rob Thomson said pregame that he thinks the rookie\u2019s looked \u201cvery comfortable\u201d there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Bryce Harper sidelined by a right wrist injury, Kyle Schwarber is also in the Phils\u2019 current first-base picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still working out there,\u201d Thomson said. \u201cBut now that we have Otto, I\u2019d like to give him some reps. I\u2019d like to get (Edmundo) Sosa back into a game as well at some point. You might see Schwarber in the outfield here a little bit, just to get (Castellanos) off his feet, let him DH for a bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schwarber\u2019s started four games in left field so far this season. He\u2019s only made nine MLB starts at first, all with the 2021 Red Sox.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Kepler blasted the Phillies to a series victory Saturday over the Blue Jays. Kepler clubbed a go-ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,5143,1385,4,144,25,4216,40,11036,469,16702],"class_list":{"0":"post-104376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cristopher-sanchez","10":"tag-max-kepler","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","14":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","15":"tag-phillies","16":"tag-phillies-analysis","17":"tag-phillies-game-story","18":"tag-phillies-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114684482390104096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}