Harper returns and makes a statement as Phillies halt skid

The Phillies had lost four straight. They’d lost Bryce Harper. They’d lost their grip on first place. But Tuesday night? They found something.

Maybe it was urgency. Maybe it was the spark of a familiar swing. Or maybe it was just Harper doing Harper things the second he stepped back in the box.

In his first at-bat back from a five-game absence, Harper launched a 394-foot fastball into the night. Just like that, the Phillies were back in front—and never looked back in an 8–3 win over the Blue Jays that felt, for the first time in a week, like a team rediscovering its identity.

The Phillies batted around in a six-run first inning, their most productive frame of the season, and got home runs from Harper and Trea Turner—back-to-back—to open the floodgates. For Turner, who added a solo shot in the eighth, it was his first multi-homer game of the year and the 18th of his career.

Harper finished 1-for-3 with two walks and two runs scored. More importantly, he looked like himself after missing nearly a week with a bruised right elbow—suffered when he was drilled by a 95-mph heater last Tuesday.

The Phillies went 1–4 without him. They now trail the Mets in the division by a half-game.

Cristopher Sánchez (5–1) did his part too, working six strong innings and allowing just one run—his first win since May 7, despite multiple solid outings in between.

Toronto, meanwhile, saw its five-game win streak come to a halt.

Addison Barger continued his personal home run derby with a two-run blast off Maz Lazar—his fourth straight game with a homer, bumping his season total to six. Davis Schneider also went deep, taking Sánchez deep in the fifth.

But this one was over early.

Blue Jays starter Bowden Francis (2–7) matched a career-worst by allowing seven runs—six earned—in just 1 2/3 innings. Turner’s two-run homer in the first was followed almost immediately by Harper’s shot. Max Kepler chipped in an RBI single, and Bryson Stott—who drew the leadoff walk to start the party—finished the inning with a two-run single of his own.

That six-run outburst matched the Phillies’ largest inning of the season. And it came, not coincidentally, the moment their star slugger stepped back onto the field.

Quotable
“I think having him in the lineup changes a lot of things for [Toronto[, game plan-wise. He affects so many different people in so many different ways, and that’s why he’s so good.” - Trea Turner, via MLB.com.