Five days after shutting the Tigers out over seven innings, Taijuan Walker authored an equally impressive start as the Phillies wrapped up their homestand with a productive offensive day.
Walker overcame a 26-pitch first inning and a laborious third to pitch five scoreless innings against the most patient lineup in baseball, the Dodgers.
He retired the final seven hitters he faced in relatively quick fashion, which made it a curious decision for manager Rob Thomson to pull him at 83 pitches. The Phillies obviously did not want Walker facing Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Max Muncy for a third time, even with a three-run lead at the time.
In the dugout, Walker did not appear to be happy with the decision, shaking his head a few times. Kyle Schwarber walked over to converse with him at one point after the decision was made in the bottom of the fifth.
Gregory Soto, Seranthony Dominguez and Jose Alvarado allowed lone runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings but the Phillies kept tacking on and won 7-3 in front of a crowd of 44,287.
The Phils won 5-1 on their homestand. They’re 32-33 as they hit the road for four in Arizona and three in Oakland.
The Dodgers entered with the lowest chase rate in MLB. Walker has found his greatest success this season when enticing the other team to expand the strike zone. Earlier this week against Detroit, he threw 42 splitters, 28 of which were out of the zone. The Tigers swung at more than half of them.
The Dodgers, with Mookie Betts, Freeman, Smith, Muncy and JD Martinez, make you work. They don’t expand the zone much. Yet Walker began his afternoon by striking out Betts and Freeman swinging at nasty splitters that tumbled out of the zone.
Three of Walker’s five innings were 1-2-3. He has a 1.93 ERA over his last five starts and the Phillies have won six of his last eight.
Facing a Dodgers opener for the second time in three days, the Phils scored in the first inning on three straight singles by Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos and Bryce Harper.
They plated two more with two outs in the third inning on a clutch two-run single by Bryson Stott, who has hit .345 with two outs and .248 with two strikes to lead the Phillies. He has six more two-strike hits than anyone in the majors this season. He’s made big strides from Year 1 to Year 2 and is batting .292 overall in 2023.
Turner sure seems to be heating up. He hit a liner up the middle for a single in his first at-bat and doubled his next time up to score the Phillies’ first two runs. He later hit a sharp single to left and scored again on Nick Castellanos’ two-run shot. Turner’s rate of hard-hit balls has increased drastically each month this season, and his swing-and-miss rate has decreased each month.
It was Castellanos’ eighth home run of the season, the same number he had through August 2 last year.
Backup catcher Garrett Stubbs also executed his second successful safety squeeze over the last month for another run.
Alec Bohm returned from the injured list and looked rusty, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. Kody Clemens got another nod at first base and continues to do something well in almost every start. He robbed Muncy of extra bases with a diving stop in the sixth inning that would have otherwise brought the tying run to the plate. In the bottom of the seventh, he singled home Stott with two outs.
Now the Phillies are off to Arizona, where they’ve lost 12 of their last 15 games to Diamondbacks teams that were far inferior to this 2023 version. Arizona leads the NL West at 40-25, has won five in a row and 11 of 15.
The Phils are 19-11 at home but 13-22 on the road, second-worst in the National League to the Rockies. The upcoming seven-game trip is their longest the rest of the season.