Shadow of series opener leaves Phils relieved at doubleheader split

PHILADELPHIA » Right around the time Jeff McNeil strode into the box with the tying run on second base in the sixth inning, or when Seranthony Dominguez issued his second walk to start the seventh, you had to wonder just how much the Phillies dugout was wondering.

The Phillies held a tenuous one-run lead over the New York Mets in Game 1 of a Sunday doubleheader. The Phils’ previously scheduled starting pitcher for Game 2 was on the injured list with COVID. The waiting replacement was still shaking off the crumbs from his purchase at a Northeast Extension rest stop. It had been four games since the Phillies last won, and the last lead they held — a six-run edge entering the ninth inning Thursday — was deemed insufficient.

And, on top of all that, they had managed to hit perennial nemesis Max Scherzer better than ever before.

If the Phillies blow this lead … then Game 2 goes as badly as it has the potential to … could they really end up nine games back of the Mets eight days into May?

What could’ve been a disaster was averted early. And even if a 6-1 loss in the nightcap meant the Phillies held serve far behind the Mets, it’s far better than what could’ve happened had they not held on to the 3-2 win in the opener.

“Anytime you can try to get two from a team on a doubleheader day, it’s really tough to do,” was how Bryce Harper, who drove in two runs in Game 1, put it. “The (second) game just kind of got away from us and we weren’t able to fight back and get the win. But being able to get one and go 1-1 today was big.”

Big, as much for what it accomplished as what it avoided. It’s getting late early for a Phillies team with high aspirations. At 1216, they embark on a sevengame West Coast swing seven games back of the Mets (20-10). With Seattle and the Dodgers looming and two starting pitchers down with COVID-19, the exhale when Corey Knebel fanned Dominic Smith to end Game 1 was palpable.

At least for one day, the divisional slide would stop.

Two consecutive rain outs had only partially washed away the stench of their last outing, squandering a 7-1 lead entering the ninth Thursday. Thanks to the combination of ineptitude and nor’easters, the Phillies hadn’t won a game since last Saturday.

Thus, 10 hits against Scherzer and six big innings from Kyle Gibson ratcheted down the pressure on Game 2 in a big way.

“I think a couple days off gives guys a day to take a breath, get away from the situation a little bit on Thursday and kind of hit the reset button,” Gibson said. “We’re going to have times throughout the year where the reset button is pretty important, and I think it was good for us.”

“I think that game, we’re all disappointed,” second baseman Jean Segura said of Thursday’s debacle. “It was a game that was unbelievable, I don’t know how they came back. To be honest, I liked the way we bounced back after that game and beat Max Scherzer.”

Segura supplied the only run against Chris Bassitt in the nightcap, his oppositefield homer in the second the 100th of his career. He also extended to 18 his hitting streak at Citizens Bank

Park, fourth-longest in the park’s history. Otherwise, Bassitt tied the Phillies up in knots, retiring 11 straight at one point.

Pete Alonso, meanwhile, was an equal opportunity destroyer of piggybacking relievers. He launched a two-run homer off Cristopher Sanchez in the first, then a three-run bomb off Nick Nelson in the fifth. It’s his second five-RBI game against the Phillies this season.

That’s not the momentum parlay hoped for after Game 1. But then again, it’s not the collapse feared had they not shaken the fog of Thursday’s implosion. And it’s reason to believe the Phillies can generate momentum far from home, starting with a Seattle team that Sunday snapped a sixgame slide.

“I know we lost the series, but I’m kind of happy because the way we lost that first game, it was embarrassing,” Segura said. “I know everybody in the locker room felt embarrassed. But at the end of the day, it’s how you come back after those tough situations, those tough losses. I think today, the boys did a really good job.”