*Photo from The Day*
Philadelphia leads series 2-1
Citizens Bank Park is the ultimate home field advantage this postseason. Kyle Schwarber homered, Alec Bohm homered, and the Philadelphia Phillies routed the Houston Astros with a 7-0 victory on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.
It was the first World Series game played in Philadelphia since 2009, the last time the Phillies made it to the dance. The fans there sure made themselves known, backing the Phillies to a win in game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead. Now, they're two wins away from the title. Better news? The next two games are also in Philadelphia, where the Phillies are 6-0 this postseason.
Phillies star Bryce Harper said of the home atmosphere that "Just walking into the ballpark, just being back home, I think is such a momentum swing for us. We all come in here and we're ready to go and we're excited to get on the field, because we know they're going to show up and there's going to be 46,000 people here screaming and yelling and going crazy."
The latest home win this postseason for the Phillies came on the back of the long ball. All 7 runs came on the back of 5 home runs, tying the record for most home runs hit in a single World Series game. That ties them with the 1928 New York Yankees, 1989 Oakland Athletics, and the 2017 Astros.
Right away, the Phillies saw themselves grab a 2-0 lead when Harper got all of a pitch, driving it deep into the right field seats for a two run home run. One inning later, Bohm resumed the scoring with a solo home run to left field. Brandon Marsh hit a solo homer of his own later in the second, just clearing the right field wall to make it a 4-0 game.
The 3rd and 4th innings went scoreless, until the Phillies offense woke up again. In the 5th inning, Schwarber returned to strike, blasting a two run home run into the shrubbery in center field to make the score 6-0. The next batter was Hoskins, who hit a solo home run to mark back to back homers, giving the Phillies a 7-0 lead.
Schwarber said of the 5 homer game that "It’s a cool way to win a game, right? We’re hitting homers and driving in runs. I felt like we’ve done a good job throughout the postseason of not being reliant on the home run. We’ve put together innings, good two-strike, two-out hitting. I think this is probably the first game throughout the whole postseason we’ve been like this."
It was Ranger Suarez who got the start for the Phillies, getting the win. Suarez allowed just 3 hits and one walk, striking out 4 hitters in 5 shutout innings. After that, a bullpen quartet of Connor Brogdon, Kyle Gibson, Nick Nelson, and Andrew Bellatti held the Astros down to seal the win.
The Astros went with Lance McCullers Jr as their starter. It didn't work well for anyone, with McCullers allowing 7 runs on 6 hits and one walk in just 4 1/3 innings pitched. Ryne Stanek finished the 5th inning for McCullers before Jose Urquidy pitched the final 3 innings.
McCullers said of his start that "I got beat, man. They hit a lot of solid pitches, I thought. At the end of the day, we got beat pretty bad and I got beat up pretty bad. I obviously wanted to pitch well and pitch much better than I did, but at the end of the day all I can do at this point is get ready to go for a potential Game 7."
Up next, game 4 of the series is on Wednesday night in Philadelphia. Aaron Nola starts for the Phillies as they look to take a commanding 3-1 series lead, while Cristian Javier starts for the Astros as they try to tie the series 2-2 and force a game 6 in Houston.
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