South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Phillies send Braves home
Brandon Marsh hit a three-run homer and J.T. Realmuto lined an insidethe-park home run that sent the Phillies bolting headfirst into the NL Championship Series for the first time since 2010 with an 8-3 win over the Braves in Game 4 Saturday.
Realmuto became the first catcher to hit an inside-the-parker in postseason history and Bryce Harper punctuated the romp with a clinching home run that helped the Phillies take the NL Division Series 3-1 against the World Series champion Braves.
“We had ups and downs during the season, just like any other club does. But they knew that they were going to come out of it at some point and start winning again,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “And we did.”
The Braves’ loss meant Major League Baseball hasn’t had a repeat champ since the Yankees won three straight from 19982000.
“Like I told them, the goal when we leave spring training is to win the division. Until you win the division, you don’t have a chance to do anything special because you never know what’s going to happen, you don’t know what team’s going to get hot, what things have to go right for you to go deep into the postseason,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
“And we got in. It didn’t happen for us this year,” he said.
The Phillies finished third in the NL East, 14 games behind the 101-win Braves this season, but now is hitting on all cylinders under Thomson. He took over for the fired Joe Girardi and transformed a team that was 22-29.
“We just got off to a little bit of a slow start and kind of spiraled. And May was a really tough month. It was a really tough schedule,” Thomson said.
“Then once we hit June, the schedule kind of lightened up a little bit and we started winning, and guys started getting confidence and believing that they could win and believing that, OK, now this is the team that we thought we were. And just kept going,” he said.
And the Phillies used a dose of Marsh Madness to keep the party rolling in October.
Yanks move Judge down in the order: Aaron Judge was dropped from the leadoff spot to No. 2 in the Yankees’ lineup for Game 3 of the AL Division Series on Saturday as they try to break the home run king out of his postseason slump.
Judge, who set the AL record with 62 home runs this season and contended for the Triple Crown, was 0 for 8 in the series with seven strikeouts entering Saturday’s game. He struck out four times in the Yankees’ 4-2 loss in 10 innings in Game 2, and got booed at Yankee Stadium.
Naylor out for Guardians: The Guardians tossed Gabriel Árias into the deep end of the postseason.
The rookie infielder made just his second career major league start at first base Saturday night in Game 3 of the AL Division Series against the Yankees.
The 22-year-old Árias filled in for Josh Naylor, who jammed his right ankle in Game 2 on Friday.
“There’s some unknowns,” manager Terry Francona said. “That’s for sure. I kind of own up to that.”