Say the numbers out loud. Five-two-six-four.
That's not a baseball play. That's a PIN code. That's the combination to a gym locker. And as of last night, it's how the Phillies lost a 2-1 game to the Dodgers at the Bank with the tying run standing ninety feet from home plate.
If you went to bed after the eighth inning: congratulations, you made the right call, and please do not read the next section.
How It Ended (Look Away)
Bottom nine, down one. Tanner Scott on the mound for LA.
Bohm singles. Realmuto doubles. Suddenly it's second and third, one out, Justin Crawford pinch-running at third, and 40-some thousand soggy diehards who sat through a rain delay are ON THEIR FEET because this is the script we were promised.
Then Brandon Marsh hits a squibber to third.
Crawford breaks for home — out at the plate. Fine. Painful, but fine. Runners still on, right?
No. Because Realmuto got caught drifting off second in the chaos and got run down to end it. A 5-2-6-4 double play. To end a baseball game. In July. Against the Dodgers.
I've been watching this team my entire life and I have never seen a game end like that. Nobody has. The official scorer probably had to look up how to write it down.
Meanwhile, Zack Wheeler Is Still Owed an Apology
Quick reminder of what got completely wasted last night:
Seven innings. Five hits. Nine strikeouts. Zero walks.
That's the line Wheeler threw — in a steady drizzle, after a 1-hour-20-minute delay, against the best lineup money can buy. The one mistake was a two-run Max Muncy homer in the fourth, and that was the whole ballgame, because we scored one run in the first inning and then apparently declared the offense closed for the evening.
The angry Wheeler second-half tour continues. The man is out here throwing reminders every five days and the bats keep leaving him on read. Seven hits last night. One run. You cannot keep doing this to him. It's elder abuse and he's not even old.
Tonight: The Rubber Match
Here's the good news — we get to run it back immediately. Series is 1-1, and the finale is tonight at 6:40 at the Bank.
Here's the complicated news: it's Aaron Nola.
Nola's sitting at 3-7 with an ERA that starts with a five, and I can already feel half of you typing. But this is exactly the kind of start that flips a season — rubber match, first-place LA team, building still buzzing (angrily) from last night. Lauer's been fine for the Dodgers, not scary. Win tonight and we take the series from the defending juggernaut and nobody remembers the locker-combination double play.
We're 56-46. Second in the East. The deadline is August 3 and the drinking guide for it already exists, because we knew we'd need it.
The Forecast Says Feelings
So tonight's assignment: back to the Bank, or back to the couch, one more time before the road trip. Rally for Nola like it's October, because the version of this team that shows up in October is being decided right now.
And if last night taught us anything, it's that you stay until the last out. However weird that out may be.
Dress for the occasion — the baseball collection is stocked, and there's always something worth grabbing in new arrivals.
Go Phils. Score more than one run. Please.
