Phillies wake up late to take Nats series

Bryce Harper whiffed on a mean Cade Cavalli sinker and walked back to the home dugout shaking his head and looking lost, while Trea Turner jumped on the first pitch twice with runners in scoring position to fly out and kill any momentum that was building.

Then, J.T. Realmuto looped a solo homer in seventh, and in the eighth, Harper, finally, golfed a hanging breaking ball 425 feet into right-center field.

Neither was Wednesday’s true hero, though. That honor went to the pinch-hitting Edmundo Sosa, who, with the bases loaded and the Phillies down to their last out, their last strike even, in the ninth, lofted a base hit into left field that drove in two and tied the game.

He didn’t stop there either. 

Sosa remained in as the second baseman, and with Jhoan Duran on to pitch the 10th, the Phillies’ super utilityman caught a liner from CJ Abrams that he doubled up with the tag to second to get the Phillies out of the frame. 

J.T. Realmuto singled right after to push Brandon Marsh as the ghost runner up to third, and then rookie Justin Crawford took the walk-off honors with an RBI knock into right.

The Phillies, from the jaws of defeat, snatched a 6-5 win against the Washington Nationals right out from it after 10, and salvaged two of three in just their second series of 2026.

Cristopher Sánchez, who had the nod for Wednesday’s series finale, didn’t have his very best stuff, but still had enough to give his team a chance, powering through 5.1 innings, a bases-loaded jam in the second, and just an earned run allowed from it to keep the Phillies in a 1-1 tie through the sixth.

Many of the Phillies’ persisting boom-or-bust issues at the plate, that go back years now, were present once again, though. 

Harper was struggling for a while. Turner, before coming up with a key single in the ninth, jumped on the first pitch in two separate two-out situations with runners in scoring position that froze momentum, and Bohm and Realmuto were both struggling for contact.

They still went 5-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Wednesday, and an abysmal 0-for-15 in the two games against Washington prior, but for now, they’ve managed and moved to an even 3-3 record heading to Colorado next.

They just had to leave everyone pulling their hair out on the way to it.

A few other beats from Wednesday in South Philly and the Washington series on the whole…

• Kyle Schwarber tried to turn the jets on during the first inning on Wednesday. At a 2-2 count and with Trea Turner at second from a leadoff walk and a stolen base, Schwarber lined Cade Cavalli’s next pitch to center on a hop short of a diving Jacob Young. The ball went rolling to the wall, Turner scored, and Schwarber, taking a glance at the outfield as he rounded first, kicked it into high gear looking to reach for third. 

Right fielder Joey Wiemer’s sprint to throw it in, and the cutoff from CJ Abrams, who ran out from short, just beat him to it. Schwarber was tagged out at third, with the call upheld after a Philadelphia challenge. The star slugger still got an RBI double on the scoresheet, and the Phillies got a 1-0 lead early, but boy, if a Schwarber triple wouldn’t have been a real shot in the arm early – not to mention a nice $500 for the PSPCA through Bette’s Triples.

• The Phillies probably could’ve used that challenge after Sánchez fell into a bases-loaded jam in the second. Sánchez struck out Washington’s Drew Millas for the second out, but the 2-2 changeup took a hard dive into the dirt and slipped under catcher J.T. Realmuto, who had to scramble to find the ball behind him. 

The runners were stuck in place, but in the confusion, Realmuto saw Young stepping way too far off first, and tried to make the throw to Harper to get the frame-ending tag. The first-base umpire ruled that Young beat the throw and the tag sliding back, Harper got up livid, and in between, Wiemer scored from third to tie the game, 1-1. And because the Phillies had already lost the manager’s challenge on Schwarber’s tag going for the triple, they couldn’t get another look at Harper’s tag attempt. 

It was just a messy sequence all around, but one that Sánchez recovered from quickly by getting James Wood to ground into a force out back at the top of the Nationals order.

• Brandon Marsh singled on a grounder through the middle in the bottom of the second that went on to help load the bases following Realmuto getting hit by a pitch and Justin Crawford running out an infield hit. 

Marsh, at that point, was batting .438 with a 1.063 OPS. Who had him as the Phillies’ leading hitter out of the gate? His split against lefties, though, is at just a .200/.200/.200 slash line with three strikeouts. That part you probably could see coming. By the end of Wednesday’s game, his average dropped to .350.

• So far, so good for Crawford. He had the walk-off hit on Wednesday and went 3-for-5 in total. He’s carrying a .412/.444/.471 slash line in a still very young season of a very young career.

• Turner stepped up with two outs in the bases-loaded situation with a chance to put a dent into Wednesday’s finale. He lined out on a first-pitch knuckle curve from Cavalli and a sliding catch by Young. 

The shortstop had another shot to put the Phillies ahead in the fourth after Crawford roped a two-out double to the left-field wall to put himself at second and Realmuto at third. Once again, Turner jumped at the first pitch, a sinker high and in, and popped out.

Turner went 1-for-4 with a walk and a single in the ninth that did go on to set the Phillies up to come back on Wednesday. He went 3-for-13 for the series.

• A six-game trip out West will take the Phillies on the road for the first time in 2026. They’ll head to Colorado first for a three-game set against the Rockies, then move over to San Francisco to take on the Giants. The club will return home next Friday with the Arizona Diamondbacks coming to town.

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