*Photo from the Los Angeles Times*
Philadelphia leads series 1-0
The rally was improbable, but that's what is so awesome about October baseball. Alec Bohm started the rally, Jean Segura drove in the go ahead run, and the Philadelphia Phillies came back to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals with a 6-3 victory on Friday afternoon in St. Louis.
Philadelphia entered the series as the 6 seed, taking on the 3 seed Cardinals in the best of 3 wild card round. The Phillies entered the 9th inning looking for a miracle. Lo and behold, a miracle is exactly what they got, rallying to score 6 straight runs en route to a shocking game one win.
The comeback is historic on national levels. The Phillies are now the only club in postseason history to score 6 runs in the 9th inning when trailing entering the inning. The win probability was just 3 percent entering the inning, but, against all odds, they pulled it off.
Phillies superstar Bryce Harper said "I said it in the cage before the game. We're not losing this game. That was the mentality. I swear. I was saying it all morning, 'We're not losing today.' It's just not going to happen. We're not going to lose this series, we're not going to lose this game. That's the mentality that we have in there. We want to go out there and win. Whatever that takes, we're going to play 27 outs. It doesn't matter how long you lead in a game, as long as you have the lead at the end."
The first 6 innings went scoreless as both sides were locked into a pitcher's duel. In the 7th, the Cardinals called on Juan Yepez, who delivered a pinch hit two run home run to put the Cardinals ahead 2-0. In the 9th, with the bases loaded, Bohm was hit by a pitch, driving in a run to cut the Phillies deficit to 2-1.
With the bases still loaded, up came Segura and delivered the go ahead single, driving in two runs to put the Cardinals ahead 3-2. Edmundo Sosa then scored on a fielder's choice, followed by an RBI single from Brandon Marsh and a sac fly from Kyle Schwarber to make it 6-2. Nolan Gorman made it 6-3 with an RBI single in the bottom of the 9th, but the Cardinals couldn't make a comeback of their own.
Starting for the Phillies was Zack Wheeler, who allowed two hits and one walk over 6 1/3 stellar innings. Jose Alvarado finished the 7th, but not before allowing the Yepez homer. David Robertson pitched the 8th, and Zach Eflin shut things down in the 9th inning.
The Cardinals sent lefty Jose Quintana to the mound, pitching 5 1/3 shutout innings on two hits and one walk. Jordan Hicks pitched the rest of the 6th, followed by 1 1/3 innings from Giovanny Gallegos. Ryan Helsley allowed 4 runs of the Phillies comeback, with Andre Pallante allowing two runs.
Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt said after the game that "This is playoffs. We got to try to find a way to win tomorrow. You know, we can’t worry about what happened today. And if we can win tomorrow, we’ll have a shot on Sunday."
Up next, game two of the series is on Saturday night in St. Louis. The Phillies go for the series sweep with Aaron Nola starting, while the Cardinals look to force a game 3 with Miles Mikolas starting.
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