The Brewers had 10 chances with runners in scoring position on Thursday. They didn’t cash in on any of them. The Phillies had just two — and that was all they needed.
That’s how a taut September duel between two division leaders ended up tilting Philadelphia’s way. Trea Turner’s seventh-inning bloop single finally snapped six innings of silence, Alec Bohm’s triple setting the table after his earlier bases-loaded strikeout had left the Phillies empty-handed. Bryson Stott added a two-out double in the ninth, giving the Phillies a 2-0 victory to close the series.
Ranger Suárez (11-6) wrote the day’s headline on the mound. He wriggled out of two jams, none bigger than the sixth when he put two runners in scoring position with nobody out — and somehow watched them all vanish. Six shutout innings, four strikeouts, three hits allowed.
And opposite him? Freddy Peralta, who stretched his scoreless streak to 29 innings before departing after five frames. He struck out eight, yielded just two hits, and left with his streak intact — still three innings shy of Teddy Higuera’s franchise record set in 1987.
From there, the bullpens decided it. Tobias Myers (1-2) gave up Bohm’s triple and Turner’s decisive single. Matt Strahm dodged Milwaukee’s last threat in the eighth, helped by Harrison Bader’s leaping grab at the center-field wall to rob Andruw Monasterio. Jhoan Duran polished it off with a perfect ninth for his 26th save.
So the Brewers left 10 runners marooned, the Phillies left with two runs and a win, and the series ended with Philadelphia holding the edge.
Next stop: Miami. Three games with the Marlins begin Friday night at 7:10 p.m.
Outfield Situation
Call it strategy, call it necessity, call it whatever you want. What’s undeniable is this: Nick Castellanos is no longer an everyday starter for the Phillies. Thursday marked the sixth time in just over two weeks that he was left out of the lineup, including twice in a series the Phillies circled on their calendar against the division-leading Brewers. He didn’t play the opener against Jacob Misiorowski, returned for Game 2 against Jose Quintana, then watched from the bench again in the finale when Freddy Peralta took the mound.
That pattern doesn’t look accidental. It looks like a plan. And at this point in the season, the plan seems to revolve around matchups.
"Well, it looks that way," manager Rob Thomson admitted. "I mean, you can call it whatever you want, but at this point in the year, I’m going to put out the lineup that I think is the best lineup on any given day to win a ballgame."
The “best lineup” right now? Against right-handers, it’s Brandon Marsh, Harrison Bader, and Max Kepler across the outfield. Against lefties, it shifts to Weston Wilson, Bader, and Castellanos.
"Yeah, there’s still a bit of a rotation, if you want to call it that," Thomson told reporters on Thursday. "If you want to call it a platoon, doesn’t matter to me."
So, whether you call it a rotation, a platoon, or simply late-season pragmatism, the Phillies have redrawn their outfield lines. And Castellanos is part of a timeshare.
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