
No surprise that a Lone Ranger wins a fierce duel.
Gunslingers at high noon. Samurai meeting in an open field. Pistols at dawn. A duel draws every tension into a single point of conflict, offering room for glory and mistakes, but not uncertainty. There must be one winner and one loser. And so it is with baseball and its duels between pitchers.
The Phillies put two on in the first (Trea Turner via hit, Alec Bohm via walk), but couldn’t bring either as far as third. Ranger Suárez put the Reds down in order in the second. Not to be outdone, Nick Lodolo sent all three Phils he faced in the inning down on swinging strikes. Ranger couldn’t quite match that; his two strikeouts in the third sandwiched a groundout. Still, you’d have to have a high-powered microscope to identify a flaw in his performance in the first third of the game (Penn and Drexel probably have a few, if you ask nicely).
The Phillies were the first to put a man on third, as Turner singled, stole second, and advanced again on a Kyle Schwarber groundout. But Lodolo punched out Bryce Harper with a sinker flawlessly placed in the upper outside corner, and the game remained scoreless.
The visitors responded by putting a man on third themselves in the form of Santiago Espinal, who singled to right and, following an Elly De La Cruz flyout, advanced on an Austin Hays double to left. Suárez induced a second out via the backwards K, but walked Noelvi Martes to load the bases. Unfazed, Ranger induced a simple groundout to end the threat, and to keep the pitcher’s duel a thing of scoreless, feverish tension.
But all fevers must break, and this one snapped when Will Benson barreled a heater to deep right for a solo shot. Ranger allowed two more singles in the inning, though he got out of it without allowing another run. Blood drawn, though a knockout blow seemed like a vague, hazy proposition.
And indeed it was, at least for the moment. The subsequent blow suffered by Lodolo— in the form of an Edmundo Sosa solo shot— may not have been first blood, but it was blood nonetheless, and it brought the game to a state of knotted-up white-knuckle pressure once more.
Suárez’ excellent day ended early and abruptly after five, with Jordan Romano coming in as his replacement. Given the large gap between the performance of the Philadelphia starters and relievers this year, this produced some fraying of the nerves, which was not helped when Romano’s first batter placed a double directly up the third base line. But Romano deftly navigated his way through the next three Cincinnattis, and the game remained tied.
When the pitchers are this good, you’re not likely to be able to string together a series of bloops and bingles. The runs will more likely come from a mistake or two, properly punished, and delivered express to the outstretched arms of fans in the outfield seats. And indeed, that was the case for Lodolo, who surrendered a two-run shot to Alec Bohm in the bottom 6th, giving the Phillies their first lead of the day.
Lodolo exited after that inning, and the Phillies took advantage, though not immediately. In the eighth Turner reached on an error, and Schwarber made them pay dearly for the mistake by homering in the very next at bat. Meanwhile, a succession of Phillies relievers did what the Cincy bullpen could not— keep their foes scoreless. Tanner Banks, Orion Kerkering, and Matt Strahm each took an inning, and each wrapped things up with a minimum of fuss. The name of this game was Suárez vs. Lodolo, and everything that occurred after the two duelists exited stage right was merely denouement.
The Phillies are 52-37. The deciding game of the series will be played tomorrow at 1:35.