Lone Ranger: Phillies 2, Braves 1

Despite getting little help from the offense, Ranger Suarez pitches the Phillies to victory

Name a better pitcher in baseball than Ranger Suarez right now, I’ll wait.

Since a rough first start off the Injured List, Suarez has been consistently great, and that was once again the case on Sunday afternoon against the Braves. He certainly needed to be great because the Phillies’ offense didn’t provide him much run support. But in the end, the offensive ineptitude wasn’t enough to overcome Suarez’s stellar outing, and the Phillies escaped with a 2-1 win.

The Phillies have traditionally struggled against Braves starter Spencer Strider (in the regular season, that is; they’re 3-0 against him in the playoffs), but early on, it looked like they might have a big day. The Phillies loaded the bases on two singles and a walk, bringing up J.T. Realmuto with two outs. But despite working the count to 2-0, he weakly grounded out to short to end the threat. (This was just the start of Realmuto’s bad day.)

Naturally, Strider settled down after that, retiring the next nine batters in order. Usually, Strider racks up high strikeout totals, but the Phillies avoided that by hitting into soft outs on the first pitch.

The Braves drew first blood in the second when catcher Sean Murphy sent a rare Suarez mistake over the fence in centerfield.

For a while, it looked like the Phillies were headed towards a 1-0 loss, but the bats finally came to life in the fifth. Bryson Stott led off with a single, and Otto Kemp broke up the shutout with an RBI double.

Brandon Marsh advanced Kemp to third with a bunt, and Trea Turner’s sacrifice fly gave the Phillies the lead.

They had a good opportunity to add to that lead in the sixth when Nick Castellanos led off with a double and Max Kepler walked. Instead, Realmuto hit one of his trademark ground balls to shortstop which resulted in a rally-killing double play.

Facing Braves reliever Dylan Lee in the eighth, the Phillies had another great chance for insurance runs when Kyle Schwarber led off with a single, and Alec Bohm doubled. But a Nick Castellanos strikeout, Kepler pop up, and (surprise!) Realmuto ground out kept the Phillies scoreless for the frame.

If the lack of run support bothered Suarez, he didn’t show it. He allowed just four hits, and Murphy’s home run was the only one that went for extra bases. And his final inning might have been his best, as he retired the Braves in order in the seventh on just six pitches.

There were still two innings to protect that one run lead, which can be a frightening prospect with the Phillies’ bullpen. Orion Kerkering got through the top of the lineup in the eighth, working around a Matt Olson single by striking out the side. But things were less easy for Matt Strahm in the ninth.

An Ozzie Albies single, and a walk to Eli White, combined with a wild pitch that Realmuto didn’t seem to realize he didn’t catch (he had a really bad game!) put runners on the corners with two outs. But Strahm got Stuart Fairchild to fly out to put another game of distance between the Phillies and Braves in the standings.

The Phillies now lead the NL East by 1.5 games, and the Braves are a distant 10.5 games back. With less than half a season remaining, and only one more series scheduled between the teams, that is going to be very tough for the Braves to make up. They’ll pretty much need help from the Phillies to do so, and if the Phils keep getting performances from their starters like Suarez just gave them, that simply isn’t going to happen.