Phillies’ bats go quiet, Braves even NLDS
Padres pull out 5-3 victory over Dodgers
ATLANTA, Oct 13, (AP): After swinging through a 95 mph fastball for strike three to end the eighth inning, Kyle Schwarber went back to the Philadelphia dugout in an 0-for-16 postseason slump.
He wasn’t the only Phillies hitter who came up empty Wednesday.
One night after scoring seven runs on 12 hits, the Phillies and their big bats went quiet in a 3-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves that evened their best-of-five NL Division Series at a game apiece.
Schwarber, who led the National League with 46 home runs this season, struck out three times and finished 0 for 4.
Schwarber isn’t alone in his struggles. Rhys Hoskins, who bats No. 2 in the lineup behind Schwarber, is 1 for 18 in the playoffs and went 0 for 4 in Game 2. Nick Castellanos was 0 for 3 after driving in three runs with three hits in Game 1.
Braves closer Kenley Jansen retired Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto and Bryce Harper in order to end the game. Back in the playoffs for the first time since 2011, the wild-card Phillies lost for the first time in four postseason games this month.
BASEBALL
After rain delayed the first pitch by nearly three hours, it took until the fourth inning for the NL East champion Braves to get a hit off Phillies starter Zack Wheeler. Ronald Acuña Jr. singled to begin the inning but didn’t budge as Wheeler retired the next three batters.
The night unraveled for Wheeler and the Phillies when the pitcher hit Acuña on the inside of his right elbow with two outs in the sixth. Acuña stayed down in a crouched position in obvious pain for a couple of minutes but got up, went to first base and stayed in the game. There was a fiveminute delay, but Wheeler said it had no bearing on his performance.
Dansby Swanson followed with a walk before Wheeler gave up a hard-hit grounder to Matt Olson that glanced off Hoskins’ glove at first for a single that scored Acuña from second and broke a scoreless tie.
Atlanta scored again without the ball leaving the infield when Austin Riley hit a dribbler up the third-base line that Wheeler fielded but not in time to make a throw to first, allowing Swanson to score from third. Travis d’Arnaud followed with a single up the middle to score Olson from second, and the Phillies trailed 3-0.
That was the end of the night for Wheeler, who gave up four hits and three runs with one walk and five strikeouts.
Harper led off the second with a double but was stranded at third when Braves starter Kyle Wright got Alec Bohm to ground out and Brandon Marsh to strike out. Wright issued his first free pass when Marsh walked with one out in the fifth. He got no further. Game 3 is Friday in Philadelphia. Schwarber said the Phillies are already looking forward to playing at home this weekend. They’ve been on the road for the last 14 games going back to the regular season.
Padres 5, Dodgers 3
In Los Angeles, not many tabbed the San Diego Padres to beat the Mets in New York in the wild-card round. Even fewer picked them against the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have dominated the Padres in recent years and were baseball’s best team during the regular season.
But they’re all even now. Manny Machado homered early and added an RBI double off Clayton
Kershaw, and Jurickson Profar singled home the go-ahead run as San Diego defeated the Dodgers 5-3 to tie their NL Division Series at one game apiece.
The wild-card Padres beat the rival Dodgers for the first time in the postseason. San Diego was swept 3-0 by the Dodgers in a 2020 Division Series and lost Game 1 of this playoff Tuesday.
Dropped from first to seventh in the batting order for matchup purposes, Profar grounded a single to right field
in the sixth inning off reliever Brusdar Graterol, who took the loss. Jake Cronenworth scored for a 4-3 lead.
Cronenworth homered off Blake Treinen in the eighth to give San Diego some insurance, and Josh Hader earned his first four-out save since August 2020 with Milwaukee.
Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy and Trea Turner went deep for the NL West champion Dodgers.
After an off day Thursday, the bestof-five series resumes with Game 3 on Friday in San Diego.
The teams traded one-run leads on a night when two of baseball’s elite pitchers - Kershaw and Yu Darvish of the Padres - got knocked around a bit. In the middle innings, it became a battle of the bullpens for the second straight game.
Hader, who got the final out of the eighth, gave up a two-out double to Freeman off the right-center wall in the ninth. That brought up Will Smith as the potential tying run at the plate. But he flied out to right to end the game.
The Dodgers’ only lead was a 2-1 advantage in the second. Baseball’s highest-scoring team in the regular season struggled to hit in the clutch.
Machado’s double in the third tied it, and Cronenworth gave the Padres a 3-2 lead with an RBI groundout.
Turner’s homer in the bottom half evened it again.
Darvish, who got the win, allowed three runs and seven hits in five-plus innings and had at least one baserunner in every inning. The right-hander struck out seven and walked two.