For five innings Sunday afternoon, the Phillies looked ready to waste a weekend that had started to feel important.
Then Alec Bohm changed the temperature.
And by the time Bryan De La Cruz found a hole down the first-base line in the eighth inning, a five-run deficit had disappeared, the Phillies had their first series sweep in more than two months and a crowded National League Wild Card race had shifted, however slightly, back in their direction.
The Phillies rallied from five runs down to beat the Twins, 7-5, at Target Field, completing a three-game sweep that began Thursday night among the cornfields in Iowa and ended Sunday with perhaps their most resilient victory of the trip. Philadelphia improved to 67-58 and moved a half-game ahead of San Diego and one game ahead of Arizona in the Wild Card standings.
They needed all seven runs because Andrew Painter spent much of the opening inning searching for the strike zone.
Painter walked Trevor Larnach on four pitches to begin the afternoon, escaped temporarily when Byron Buxton grounded into a double play, then allowed two singles and another walk. Brooks Lee nearly punished him with a grand slam that hooked foul.
Painter threw essentially the same mistake again.
Lee did not miss twice.
His grand slam put Minnesota ahead 4-0 before Painter hit Luke Keaschall with the next pitch, creating a brief confrontation around home plate and prompting warnings to both teams. Kody Clemens — the former Phillie — added a solo homer in the third. Suddenly, the club that had outscored Minnesota 16-2 in the first two games of the trip was staring at a 5-0 deficit.
But there was something worthwhile buried inside Painter's uneven afternoon.
He stayed in the game.
Painter completed five innings, allowing five runs on six hits with three walks and two strikeouts over 94 pitches. After the chaos of the first and Clemens' homer in the third, he kept the Phillies close enough for something to happen.
Something finally did in the sixth.
Kyle Schwarber doubled. Bryson Stott reached. Bryce Harper walked. Luis Arraez's groundout brought home the Phillies' first run.
Then Bohm stepped in.
One night after producing the first five-hit game of his career, Bohm drove a three-run homer 408 feet to left field. What had been a 5-0 deficit became 5-4 with one swing.
This is what the Phillies have spent much of the summer searching for: not simply offense, but offense that travels from one day to the next.
Thursday, Schwarber supplied the thunder in Iowa. Saturday, Bohm collected five hits and Stott punctuated a seven-run inning with a three-run homer. Sunday, Philadelphia had to manufacture a comeback without Trea Turner, who was available but remained out of the lineup after fouling a ball off his right knee Saturday.
The bullpen gave the offense time.
Tim Mayza, Orion Kerkering and Jonathan Bowlan combined for three hitless innings after Painter departed. Kerkering needed only 12 pitches for a perfect seventh and improved to 7-1.
Then came the eighth.
Harper singled. Arraez doubled. Derek Hill entered to run for him.
Bohm dropped a single into shallow right that brought Harper home with the tying run, and a Minnesota error allowed Bohm to advance to second. After Brandon Marsh was intentionally walked and J.T. Realmuto fouled out, De La Cruz came to the plate with two outs.
His single slipped past first baseman Royce Lewis and down the line.
Hill scored.
Bohm scored.
The Phillies led 7-5.
Jhoan Duran made it stand, though not easily. Facing his former organization, Duran worked around a walk and a single in a 33-pitch ninth, striking out three to earn his 26th save. Philadelphia's bullpen combined for four scoreless innings while allowing only one hit.
A week ago, the Phillies looked increasingly vulnerable. The division had drifted toward fantasy, the Wild Card margin had disappeared and every offensive drought seemed magnified.
They leave Minnesota in a different position.
Not safe. Not fixed. And certainly not suddenly transformed.
But better.
The Phillies have won five of seven. They swept a series for the first time since early June. And after beginning Sunday in a 5-0 hole, they boarded the flight home with three victories from three very different games — a showcase win in Iowa, a Saturday rout and a Sunday comeback.
In August, with the postseason race compressed into fractions of games, style points have stopped mattering.
The Phillies just needed wins.
They found three of them in the Midwest.
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