The louder Citizens Bank Park has booed Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. this weekend, the more comfortable he has looked.<\/p>\n
Every trip to the plate has felt like an event.<\/p>\n
One night after launching a 450-foot homer, staring toward the Phillies\u2019 dugout and slowly making his way around the bases, Acu\u00f1a stepped in with the tying run at the plate in the eighth inning Sunday.<\/p>\n
The boos rained down again.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a welcomed every one of them, then launched a game-tying three-run homer off a 100.5 mph fastball from Alex McFarlane, erasing a lead the Phillies had spent the entire afternoon building.<\/p>\n
Atlanta scored again in the ninth to hand the Phillies a 5-4 loss at a sun-filled Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a, who gave himself a curtain call outside the Braves dugout Sunday, is now 7-for-12 with two homers through the first three games of the series.<\/p>\n
He has certainly enjoyed his stay in South Philadelphia as the postseason approaches and the Braves try to put the division out of reach.<\/p>\n
His eighth-inning swing helped waste one of Aaron Nola\u2019s most impressive starts of the season.<\/p>\n
Nola held the Braves to one run on four hits over seven innings, walking one and striking out five. It was his seventh consecutive start of at least five innings with three or fewer runs allowed.<\/p>\n
The outing offered another reason to believe the Phillies were right to trust what they had when they could not acquire starting pitching depth at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia entered the deadline seeking a bat who could consistently get on base, a pair of relievers and another starter. The Phillies acquired the first two but could not land the latter.<\/p>\n
That meant trusting Andrew Painter to work his way back to the majors in Triple-A after a rough first stint.<\/p>\n
And leaning on the right arm of their longest-tenured player.<\/p>\n
There were reservations. Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski even admitted he was \u201ca little\u201d concerned about the rotation depth.<\/p>\n
But Nola has found his way during some of the most important months of the year.<\/p>\n
From March through June, he posted a 6.04 ERA, the highest among qualified starters. One of those outings came against these Braves, who tagged him for six runs on seven hits.<\/p>\n
Since the beginning of July, Nola has a 3.26 ERA across 12 starts.<\/p>\n
He kept his pitch count under control Sunday and attacked all afternoon, generating three first-pitch outs and reaching two strikes against 14 hitters.<\/p>\n
The Braves employed an aggressive approach, but Nola consistently made the final pitch when he needed it, whether the result landed in Garrett Stubbs\u2019 mitt or was put in play.<\/p>\n
The Phillies backed him with two first-inning runs against Tyler Mahle, one of the starting pitchers linked to Philadelphia before Atlanta acquired him at the deadline.<\/p>\n
Kyle Schwarber walked, then advanced to third on an error during a fielder\u2019s choice. Luis Arraez brought him home with a sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
As Schwarber returned to the dugout, he appeared to gesture something toward Alec Bohm.<\/p>\n
Bohm then lined an RBI double that scored Trea Turner.<\/p>\n
That was all the Phillies produced against Mahle, who entered Sunday with a 1.48 ERA in five starts since joining the Braves.<\/p>\n
Derek Hill provided a massive insurance run in the seventh, launching a solo homer and continuing to be the clutch hitter Philadelphia needed. Since joining the Phillies in June, Hill has posted a .999 OPS in the seventh inning or later.<\/p>\n
Schwarber added another solo shot later in the inning. His major league-leading 42nd homer extended the Phillies\u2019 lead to 4-1.<\/p>\n
Those insurance runs looked as if they had put the game away.<\/p>\n
Then the Phillies gave them all back.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a\u2019s homer tied it in the eighth, but the comeback wasn\u2019t complete.<\/p>\n
Ozzie Albies doubled off Jhoan Duran in the ninth, then Austin Riley drove him home with a triple. Duran had not allowed two extra-base hits in an outing since Aug. 27, 2024, also against the Braves, when he was a member of the Twins.<\/p>\n
The loss officially ends Philadelphia\u2019s chance of winning the head-to-head season tiebreaker. Atlanta now owns seven victories with only four games remaining between the clubs.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a took it all away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The louder Citizens Bank Park has booed Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. this weekend, the more comfortable he has looked.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,11036,16702],"class_list":["post-798339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-phillies","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-philadelphiaphillies","tag-phillies","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-phillies-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117225900182897366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798339","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=798339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}