Let’s relive this weird moment in history
There’s probably a lot of the 2015 Phillies that you don’t remember. That’s part of the reason why we here at TGP are doing this series reminiscing about the worst Phillies team of the 21st century. If there’s anything you remember from that season, it’s almost assuredly Cole Hamels’ no-hitter in his last start as a Phillie. It was the no-doubt highlight of that season for the Phillies and one of the few good memories that came from it.
No one would blame you if you didn’t have any memory of Grady Sizemore’s time with the 2015 Phillies. It was certainly not one of the highlights of the season, as the former MVP candidate had just a .584 OPS in 39 games before being released. We covered the full Sizemore story already in this series, but here we’re going to talk about his glorious last hurrah with the Phillies.
On May 16th, 2015, the Phillies were set to play the second of a three-game series at home against the Arizona Diamondbacks. They had won the night before to “improve” their record to 14-23 and were going for just their third series win of the season and looking to extend their current winning streak to four in a row.
Philadelphia sent Jerome Williams to the mound against Archie Bradley of the Diamondbacks. Here are the lineups that took the field behind those two pitchers:
Baseball Reference
Sizemore stepped up to the plate in the first inning with one out and a runner on second after a stolen base from Freddy Galvis. But he would ultimately be retired after six pitches on a deep flyball to left field. No hits yet.
The game was scoreless until there were two outs in the bottom of the second. That’s when Jeff Francoeur homered off of Bradley, his third of the year, to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead.
Williams responded with a shutdown inning in the third, dancing around a two-out single from Mark Trumbo with a groundout from a 27-year-old Paul Goldschmidt. The bats built off of that momentum, scoring three more off of Bradley in the third with Sizemore collecting his first hit of the day, a single through the hole on the right side of the infield into right field. He eventually came around to score after a Ryan Howard double and a Chase Utley single.
The D-Backs got one back in the fourth on a single from Nick Ahmed to cut the deficit to 4-1. But in the bottom of the fourth, Sizemore picked up his second hit of the day, a broken bat single up the middle off of new pitcher Andrew Chafin. Alas, he was not destined to score this time, as Howard grounded out to end the inning.
That young phenom Goldschmidt blasted a two-run shot to left to cut the Phillies’ lead to 4-3 as Williams seemed to be faltering in the fifth.
No matter, as the Phillies would add on three more in their half of the fifth. Three doubles from Carlos Ruiz, Chase Utley, and pinch hitter Andres Blanco did the damage against Chafin and gave Philadelphia some breathing room with a 7-3 lead.
Justin De Fratus then allowed a run on a single from former Phillies farmhand Tuffy Gosewisch, but Grady Sizemore was set to lead off the bottom of the sixth. He promptly collected his third hit of the night, a double, with a ripped line drive to right off of the first pitch from new reliever Addison Reed. But Sizemore would only advance as far as third base before the threat was quelled.
Much hyped Cuban import Yasmany Tomas, who was rumored to be a target of the Phillies, hit his first home run of his MLB career in the eighth off of Ken Giles.
But there was no fear despite the lead shrinking to 7-5, as Grady Sizemore was due up again in the bottom of the eighth. And wouldn’t you know it; he singled again to the right side for his fourth hit of the night. It was his ninth career four hit game and his first since 2008. Strangely enough, it was the third of 10 four-hit games from the Phillies that season, with the others coming from Ruiz, Francoeur, Ben Revere, Maikel Franco, César Hernández, Chase Utley, Aaron Altherr, and two from Odúbel Herrera.
If you want to re-live this exemplary performance from Grady Sizemore in all its glory, here’s a full highlight reel of all four hits:
The Phillies went on to win the game 7-5 as Jonathan Papelbon picked up his ninth win of the year and ultimately went on to sweep the series against the Diamondbacks.
Unfortunately, this game didn’t go on to spark any rejuvenation of Grady Sizemore’s career, as he was designated for assignment about two weeks later on May 29th. But for one last night at Citizen’s Bank Park in 2015, Grady Sizemore was an MVP-caliber player.