That lineup? You know the one. The one that turns every at-bat into a mental chess match and every inning into a minefield. Power. Patience. Chaos. They've got it all. But Luzardo? For seven innings, he turned their Death Star into a pop gun.
And that’s why the Phillies walked away with a 3-2 victory over the Dodgers at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night—snapping L.A.'s eight-game winning streak to open the season.
Against a team that makes you sweat with every single pitch, Luzardo was ice-cold. He carved through Mookie, Shohei, and the rest like a surgeon with a scalpel. Just one runner past second base. No drama. Just command. Just precision.
"I think this was probably one of my most well-executed starts I’ve ever had in my career," Luzardo said afterward. "Happy to give us a chance to win. Making the pitches where we needed to make them, moving the ball around, and J.T. [Realmuto] did a great job calling the game back there. I didn’t shake once, just trusting him."
Luzardo's work has been a revelation. Over his first two starts with the Phillies, he’s whiffed 19 batters—joining Vince Velasquez (25 K's in 2016) and Jim Bunning (20 K's in 1964) as the only other pitchers in franchise history to start a season with that kind of dominance.
Meanwhile, the Phillies made sure to capitalize on their chances.
In the first inning, Trea Turner slapped a slider just inside the chalk on the third-base line for a double. He then swiped third base, and with Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the ropes, he panicked. Yamamoto stepped off, threw a wild pickoff attempt that rolled toward the tarp, and Turner was home before the dust even settled. Just like that, the Phillies had a 1-0 lead.
But they weren’t done. In the seventh, Max Kepler worked a walk. Nick Castellanos followed with a double. Bryson Stott drove Kepler in with an RBI single. Then, with Castellanos off on contact, Brandon Marsh grounded to second, and Castellanos came home easily to make it 3-0.
Castellanos finished the night with two of Philadelphia's five hits. Yamamoto surrendered the one run in the first and gave up just three hits over six frames.
Shohei Ohtani finished 1-for-4, but it was his mistake in the eighth that made waves. With two outs and Mookie Betts at the plate, Ohtani tried to swipe second base. But Realmuto was having none of it, gunning him down to end the inning and snuff out a potential Dodgers rally.
Then came the ninth.
Jordan Romano, tasked with closing it out, found himself in hot water. Mookie Betts walked, and—BAM—Tommy Edman crushed a two-run homer to right. His fifth of the season. Just like that, the Dodgers were within one.
But there was no panic.
Romano issued another walk to Will Smith, but then he slammed the door. A strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play. Max Muncy swung and missed at a 96-mph fastball up and out of the zone. J.T. Realmuto fired a bullet to second base, where Turner made a flawless swipe tag on pinch-runner Chris Taylor. Game over.
Well, not quite. Umpire Henry Wendelstedt originally called Taylor safe, but after a replay review, the call was overturned.
"Live, I thought I got him for sure, and on the first replay, it looked like he was out," Realmuto said. "But the next couple of angles were tough to read, so I thought it was 50-50."
Dramatic? Absolutely. But fitting.
"It's so early in the season, I don't really take too much out of this," said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. "But I do know that playing the Dodgers, or any good team really, the guys get up for it and it's important to them to beat those teams."
These two heavyweights are almost certainly bound to meet again in a game that matters a whole lot more than April baseball—and when they do, you can bet the stakes will be through the roof.
These two heavyweights are almost certainly bound to meet again in a game that matters a whole lot more than April baseball—and when they do, you can bet the stakes will be through the roof.
