The Arizona Diamondbacks won 2-1 against the Philadelphia Phillies thanks to a run by Pavin Smith in the ninth inning, restoring the series to 2-1 between the two teams.
Once again, the Philadelphia Phillies managed to control the Arizona Diamondbacks’ offense, but this time it wasn’t enough. Before Game 3 of this National Baseball League Championship Series, Phillies manager Rob Thomson shared his strategy for shutting down his opponents.
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“I told the guys at the beginning of the series that if we take care of the baseball defensively and don’t give them free passes, we can clean up some of the chaos they cause because they’re really good at that,” he told reporters on Wednesday . […] You benefit from mistakes and you have to eliminate them. I think we did it.”
That’s what they did, but a certain event changed things in the meeting.
After Bryce Harper scored first in the seventh inning, things got bad for the Pennsylvania club. While the team’s pitchers did almost nothing to the opponent – starter Ranger Suarez struck out seven hitters in the entire game – Orion Kerkering’s presence on the mound was a disaster.
The latter allowed three hits, as many as Suarez in his 5.1 innings pitched, in addition to tying Arizona thanks to a double from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Kenkering was immediately replaced by Jose Alvarado after this unfortunate sequence.
For their part, the Diamondbacks were in the game for the first time in the series, and it paid off. They brought the ball to safety eight times.
Starter Brandon Pfaadt was even better than his counterpart on the Phillies side, striking out nine opponents in the mitt.
Torey Lovullo’s men will have a chance to tie the game in game four on Friday.