Phillies stage win of the season thanks to three very different heroes
The Phillies’ 6-4 victory over the New York Mets on Saturday wouldn’t have happened without Bryce Harper, Cal Stevenson and Taijuan Walker.
Sprits inside Citizens Bank Park were low when Bryce Harper came up to the plate with one out in the top of the fourth inning. Not even 24 hours after the Phillies had been manhandled, 11-3, by the rival New York Mets, they appeared headed for another blowout loss. They were already trailing 4-0 after the Mets jumped on Phillies lefty starter Kolby Allard, who only lasted three innings after being recalled from Triple-A to rejoin the team’s starting rotation.
Meanwhile, Mets starter Luis Severino was absolutely cruising. The veteran right-hander had only allowed one base-runner to that point and appeared to be in peak form. On the first pitch he saw, Harper smoked a changeup into left-center field for a home run — his first time going yard since Aug. 9.
Harper’s 36-day power outage had finally ended, and while his power outages are rare, they are almost always followed by power surges. And when Harper returned to the plate in the sixth inning after Trea Turner drew a two-out walk against Severino, he worked a seven-pitch at-bat that ended with — you guessed it — another home run, this time a two-run blast to right field.
Typically, a stretch like this is considered a “slump.” But Harper has racked up singles and doubles for a month-plus despite a lack of fireworks. Seeing a pair of baseballs go into the seats was not as cathartic as it might have been otherwise.
“I’d go another 200 at-bats without [a home run],” Harper said. “I’m having good at-bats, we’re winning games.”
Suddenly, though, the ballpark Harper calls home had life. And over the next hour and a half or so, that ballpark became the place to be. No September game will be a must-win for the 2024 Phillies, who have enough wins built in that they can prioritize health over short-term gains for the next few weeks. But if the murmurs in the ballpark — oftentimes drowned out by the cheers of Mets fans — were any indication, Saturday’s game felt like a must-win to many.
So, of course it was Harper, one of the single most recognizable names and faces in recent baseball history, the $330 million man, two-time Most Valuable Player, 2022 NLCS MVP with a laundry list of signature moments as a member of the Phillies, who rose to the occasion. The man who many call “The Showman” was exactly that, finally finding his power exactly when his team needed it most.
While Harper, staging a pair of vintage Harper moments, was the likeliest hero imaginable on a September day like this, it was two of the least likely heroes anybody could have anticipated who enabled the Phillies to complete a remarkable comeback and defeat the red-hot Mets, 6-4, shrinking their magic number in the National League East to seven games.
Cal Stevenson is 28 years old, and he has never spent more than 25 consecutive days on a major-league roster. He was traded three times in four years before ever appearing in a major-league game. Stevenson was designated for assignment twice before landing with the Phillies in May of 2023. The Phillies DFA’d Stevenson six days later, marking the third time he was sent through waivers, but that time he went unclaimed. Stevenson stayed in the Phillies minor league system, his future very much uncertain.
