Harper homers; bullpen stifles Atlanta’s offense

ATLANTA — This is

Bryce Harper's favorite time of year.

Ranger Suárez and a parade of hard-throwing Philadelphia relievers are enjoying themselves, too.

Harper hit his 12th career postseason homer, Suárez and a half-dozen teammates combined on a five-hitter, and the Phillies stifled baseball's most prolific offense for a 3-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Saturday night.

In a playoff rematch between division rivals, the 104-win Braves find themselves in exactly the same position as a year ago: trailing the Phillies after the opener at Truist Park.

“This team, to a man, has this innate toughness to them,” Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson said. “They're really resilient, and they just keep fighting. So it's a great combination of talent and makeup that we have on this club.”

In 2022, the Phillies knocked off the Braves 3-1 on the way to an improbable World Series appearance. Now, they're up again heading to Game 2 of the best-of-five series Monday night in Atlanta.

As usual, Harper was right in the middle of things. He reached base in all four at-bats and gave the Phillies some breathing room with a liner into the right-field seats off 20game winner Spencer Strider in the sixth inning.

“This is his time of year,” Thomson said. “This is where he kind of shines.”

The Braves' offense had been shining all season, tying the major league record with 307 homers while averaging more than 5.8 runs per game.

They came up empty to start the postseason, enduring their first shutout since May 12 — and their first all season at Truist Park. They became the first team to lead the majors in runs and get shut out in their postseason opener since the 2001 Mariners.

Wild-card series hero Bryson Stott broke a scoreless tie with a run-scoring single in the fourth, driving in Harper with an unearned run after a wild pickoff throw by Strider.

Harper padded the lead all by himself by going deep off Spencer, who is 8-0 with 1.90 ERA against the Phillies in the regular season but dropped to 0-2 against them in the postseason.

Strider went seven innings, allowing one earned run on five hits with eight strikeouts.

The mood turned ugly in the eighth when the Phillies tacked on their final run courtesy of catcher interference against Sean Murphy. J.T. Realmuto fouled off a pitch with the bases loaded, but his bat barely nicked Murphy's mitt to force in a run.

After the call was reviewed and upheld, there was a brief delay when a handful of fans threw trash on the field.