The Phillies had Tuesday night in their hands, and then they handed it right back with one of the ugliest baserunning mistakes you’ll see all season.
Philadelphia trailed the Dodgers 2-1 in the ninth when it put runners on second and third with one out. Instead of turning that into real pressure, the inning ended in a 5-2-6-4 double play that started with J.T. Realmuto’s misread and finished with the Phillies stranded in a mess of their own making.
The sequence began with Realmuto at second and Justin Crawford at third against Tanner Scott, who had come in after getting the final two outs of the eighth. Brandon Marsh hit a slow ball to Max Muncy at third, Muncy fired home, and Crawford got caught in a rundown and was tagged out.
Realmuto then drifted back toward second for reasons that were hard to explain in real time and even harder after the fact. The Dodgers finished the play, and the game was over.
Realmuto owned it afterward.
"Just a bad baserunning play, really," Realmuto said after the game (via MLB.com). "We were going on seeing it through there, and once Craw gets in the rundown and I'm on third base, there's no reason for me to go back to second.
Just a lack of judgment. You can't make two outs on that play.
I've just to stay in scoring position."
The play wasn’t all on Realmuto, though. Mookie Betts delivered a strong throw to second from an awkward spot after tagging Crawford, and Realmuto was nearly able to escape the whole thing.
He was almost safe. Almost.
For Phillies fans, the whole thing had a familiar sting. Last July, Philadelphia pulled off a nearly identical baserunning blunder against the Angels, turning second and third with no outs into a 4-2-6-2-5 double play.
Even with the occasional brain freeze, the Phillies’ baserunning numbers still grade well. Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs both have them fourth in baseball in baserunning, a broader measure that covers stolen bases, taking extra bases, and advancing on balls in the dirt. But Tuesday was a reminder that good teams can still do something sloppy enough to hand away a game.
"There's a lot of talent on both of our teams," Realmuto said after the game (via MLB.com). "So you're going to see a lot of times the games are going to be won by the little things. They've been able to make less mistakes than we have, really, in our series going back to last postseason … It's the little things that you have to do well to beat a team like that."
The loss leaves the Phillies three games back in the NL East and 3 ½ games ahead in the wild-card race. The Dodgers, meanwhile, remain 11 ½ games clear in the NL West.
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