Well, that was weird.
The kind of weird you bottle up and put on a shelf, just to remind yourself that baseball is never boring — especially when you desperately need a win.
Brandon Marsh delivered the final swing, lining a ball 381 feet to straightaway center in the bottom of the 11th to walk it off as the Phillies outlasted the Cubs, 4-3, on a night that will be remembered less for the big bat and more for the little things — two bunt singles, an undrafted rookie from a Division II school, and a lineup stitched together with equal parts desperation and hope.
This was a game the Phillies had no business winning. Not after the week they just had. Not after losing nine of their last ten. Not after watching Ian Happ tie things up in the eighth with a solo homer off Matt Strahm. And certainly not after Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled home the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th off Carlos Hernández to give the Cubs a 3-2 lead.
But then came the chaos. And then came Otto Kemp.
Let’s pause there for a second: Otto Kemp. Twenty-five years old. Played college ball at Point Loma Nazarene — a Division II school that sounds more like a liberal arts retreat than a baseball powerhouse. Undrafted. Called up Saturday. First big league start Monday. And what did he do? Just go 3-for-4, bail out the Phillies twice, and help script one of the most unlikely endings of the season.
Kemp singled in the fifth for his first major league hit, then scooted to third when Cubs starter Matthew Boyd spiked a pickoff attempt into the grass. Weston Wilson brought him home for a 2-1 lead, and for a moment, it felt like something might actually break right.
Fast forward to the 11th. After J.T. Realmuto punched a single to score the ghost runner and tie it at 3-3, Kemp stepped in again. But not with power. Not with flash. With a bunt.
That’s right — a bunt. His first since 2021, when he played summer ball in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He dropped it down perfectly. Infield frozen. Everybody safe. And just like that, the Phillies had loaded the bases — thanks to back-to-back bunt singles, the first by Bryson Stott, who entered late after riding the bench in the midst of a 2-for-24 slump.
Then came Marsh. Hitting .228 on the year. Swinging late. Looking lost. And suddenly? He laced a ball to center field that almost left the yard. Realmuto scored. The Phillies mobbed Marsh at first. And the crowd — those who stayed — got to exhale for the first time in a week.
They needed this one. Badly. A win that made no sense and came out of nowhere. A game where bunt singles led to salvation and an undrafted kid from a school most people have never heard of became the heartbeat of a broken lineup.
And in the end? All that mattered was the scoreboard.
Phillies 4. Cubs 3. Hope, somehow, still alive.
