The Yankees had an impressive sweep against the Phillies
The Yankees impressively swept the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, who were the best team in MLB coming into the series. The Yankees got help from recent trade acquisitions Jazz Chisholm and Mark Leiter Jr. in this series.
The Yankees have now won five games in a row after going just 5–9 in their previous 14 games. This five-game winning streak comes after a 10–23 slide and it is their longest winning streak since eight consecutive wins from May 9 to June 6.
The Phillies, who have a 6.5 game lead for first place in the NL East and have the best record in the National League, have lost four games in a row and have gone 4–11 in their last 15 games. Before this 15 games stretch, they had swept the Dodgers and were a very impressive 29 games above .500 at 61–32. The Phillies had a 8.63 ERA since July 12 coming into the series finale and in Wednesday’s game their bullpen just allowed one hit and zero runs but their starting pitcher did not throw well.
With the Yankees five game winning streak they are still in second place in the AL East but just barely since they are half a game behind Baltimore. The Orioles and Yankees had been struggling at the same time but now that the Yankees are playing well the Orioles have started playing well also as they have won four of their last five games.
In the series finale against the Phillies on Wednesday on the last day of July, the Yankees won 6–5 after a very rare road win by Nestor Cortes and an out of nowhere offensive outburst by DJ LeMahieiu. LeMahieu had six RBI in this game after having 13 RBI in 47 games this season and going 2–32 in his previous 14 games.
“We know we’re good and when we play well, we know we can beat anyone,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after the game.
LeMahieu hit a grand slam that went just barely into the first row in the stands and the fan dropped the ball fell and it fell back on the field. Replay review was needed to determine that it was in fact a grand slam.
“It’s been a tough go,” LeMahieu said. “Today felt good. I was trying to put something in the air, put something in the outfield. Put a good swing on it.”
After his grand slam off of an 83 mph slider off of Cristopher Sanchez earlier in the game, LeMahieu went where the ball was pitched and went the other way for a two out two-run double to the wall to score Alex Verdugo and Anthony Volpe. LeMahieu had a career-high six RBI in this game.
The dugout went wild in celebration after his grand slam and his two-run double. It was good for him to have this offensive success since he had been struggling so much this season. He is very well respected by his teammates and they know the work he has put in. He won the batting title with the Yankees in 2020 and previously won the batting title with the Rockies in the National League earlier in his career. He got a rare start and produced.
The Phillies starter allowed six earned runs in 5.2 innings in this game after allowing just seven earned runs in his previous three starts. He is having a very good season since in his 21 starts he has a 3.36 ERA and in his first 20 starts he had a 3.05 ERA.
Judge struck out on 99 mph fastball in 7th for his fourth strikeout of game in a rare off game for him. He had been very good recently since in his previous five games he was 11–20 with one doubles, four homers and 12 RBI. He is currently first in MLB in homers with 39 (second place is Shohei Ohtani with 32), first place in MLB in RBI with 99 (second place is Jose Ramirez with 87), first place in MLB in total bases, first place in MLB in OBP with a .447 OBP (second place is Juan Soto), first place in OPS (second place is Soto) and first place in WAR at 7.5 (second place is Bobby Witt Jr at at 7.0 WAR.
With runners on first and second in the bottom of the 7th inning, Tommy Kahnle got a big strikeout on a low changeup to Kyle Schwarber and then got Austin Hays to fly out to left to end the 7th. He has been great against lefties this season.
Phillies sluggers Schwarber and Bryce Harper struggled in this series. They went 1–8 in this game and the two lefties combined to go 1–24 with 11 strikeouts in the three games series. Harper has gone 1–30 in his last eight games to lower his average from .296 to .274 and his OBP from .395 to .370. The Yankees were playing against Harper and the Phillies at the right time.
Judge made an outstanding throw to get a runner out at second in the 8th inning. Leiter Jr., who was in his second game with the Yankees after being traded from the Cubs, got a really big strikeout of Brandon Marsh with the bases loaded on a pitch down in the zone to end the 8th inning. He allowed three hits in the eight inning, which is too many, but that clutch strikeout held them to just one run in the inning and meant that the Yankees had the lead going into the ninth inning.
Harper hit a game ending 4–6–3 double play to end the game to finish off his series were he did not do anything productive. Clay Holmes got through the ninth inning on just seven pitches and only allowed one hit. He record his 22nd save of this season.
Holmes did blow his eighth save of the season in the second game of the series but the Yankees were able to win the game in 12 innings partly due to Leiter Jr.’s pitching in extra innings and a big time performance by the offense. Holmes has seven blows saves in his last 25 appearances going back to his second blown save of the season on May 20. He did have an outstanding start to the season since he did not allow an earned run in his first 20 games.
Jazz Chisholm went 1–4 with a run scored in this game and has at least one hit in each of his four games with the Yankees since being traded from the inept Miami Marlins. In his four games, he is 7–19 (.368) with four homers, eight doubles, one steal and a 1.400 OPS. He has also played very good defense at third base after not playing one game before at third base in his career. He gives them speed outside of Anthony Volpe that they did not have in their lineup. Chisholm has great speed and when he was with the Marlins in 101 games he did not ground into a single double play.
When Chisholm was traded to the Yankees from Marlins he had a 101 OPS+ and after his first four games with the Yankees his OPS+ is all the way up to 109. James Rowson is the Yankees hitting coach and was the Marlins bench coach when Chisholm had his best overall season in 2022 when he had a 138 OPS+ in 60 games.
Volpe went 1–4 with a run scored as well and now has at least one hit in 11 of the 12 games since the All-Star break. In the 12 games since the break, Volpe is 17–51 with three doubles, three homers, eight runs scored, seven RBI and four steals. It makes sense having him hit sixth in the lineup like he did on Wednesday since he can use his speed on the bases more.
Giancarlo Stanton had a good game going 2–4 in his third game off of the injured list. He make the lineup better than it was when he was out of the lineup for just over a month.
One negative from the series was that Gleyber Torres went just 1–14 with three strikeouts in the three game series and in his last five games he has gone 3–23. He made a big play on a carom in extra innings on Tuesday but he has also not made a few plays in the field that he should have made recently. If LeMahieu continues to hit it, which is a big if since it has only been one game, it would make sense to have LeMahieu at third and Chisholm at second. Torres will likely turn it around since he had been hitting very well before this five game stretch.
Cortes was not great with three earned runs in 5.1 innings but he did pick up his first win on the road this season. He has a 6.08 ERA in 12 starts on the road this season but a much, much better 2.48 ERA in 11 starts at Yankee Stadium this season. The Yankees have not been able to figure out why he has been so much better at home this season and think it has been mostly random that his numbers are much better at home since his routine has stayed the same.
This was the first time the Phillies have been swept in a series this season and Phillies had best record in MLB coming into this series.
