PHILADELPHIA — They can taste it now, as evidenced by the thick fog that filled the service-level hallway outside the Phillies clubhouse Tuesday night. They can taste it because, right now, the Phillies can rally with back-to-back doubles by Kody Clemens and Cal Stevenson followed by a Buddy Kennedy single to seal a 9-4 win. They can taste it because even the terrifying moments — like Kyle Schwarber exiting with a hyperextended elbow — are speed bumps, not sinkholes.
They can taste it because they dismantled Edwin Uceta, a Tampa Bay Rays righty who has been one of the best relievers in baseball since July, and they saw how he reacted to it.
Uceta reached back to throw his hardest pitch of the season. It drilled Nick Castellanos in the hip.
“I just told him that was bulls–t,” Castellanos said. “You know? You’re throwing a baseball over 90 miles an hour and you’re frustrated. You’re going to throw at somebody? That’s like my 2-year-old throwing a fit because I take away his dessert before he’s finished.”
The benches cleared. Bryce Harper, standing on second base, was enraged. He came to the slope of the mound before two Tampa Bay players restrained him. Harper yelled. Things escalated.
“The whole thing just really fired me up,” Harper said. “It really upset me. It’s not something we should accept as Major League Baseball.”
This is why Harper was close to doing much more than yelling at Uceta, who was ejected by the umpires.
“He didn’t turn around, and I didn’t want to be a loser and come up behind him,” Harper said. “If he’s going to turn around, then all right, let’s go. But he never turned around, so I didn’t want to … I’ll keep saying loser. I didn’t want to be a loser. There’s another word I want to use, but I won’t. But I didn’t want to be a loser. That wouldn’t have been right. If he was facing me, then all right.”
Brandon Marsh hustled to step between Harper and the Tampa Bay players. Bench coach Mike Calitri held Harper back until Harper shoved him away. Everyone was on the field. Matt Strahm, who had already pitched, reappeared in his blue tank top and shorts. “When in doubt,” Strahm said, “I’m going out.” At least two Phillies players on the injured list rushed the field; they will be fined by MLB for doing that. Schwarber, confined to the trainer’s room, watched everything on a monitor.
“Yeah, I wanted to go out,” Schwarber said. “But it probably wouldn’t have been the smartest thing.”
The magic number for the Phillies to clinch their first division title in 13 years is 10. They can taste it.
It’s not as if the Phillies needed anything to galvanize them. They are banged up — Schwarber was just the latest ding — but they are winning. They are getting it done. Maybe it’s not pretty; Ranger Suárez allowed 12 hits in 5 1/3 innings and his readiness for October remains a concern. They miss Alec Bohm and J.T. Realmuto. Their reserves who will not have a role in October have done enough.
But a little fire, courtesy of Uceta, cannot hurt.
“As a team, we don’t really need moments like that,” Harper said. “Because we are that type of team. Right? Anytime. If we’re going to dinner, or hanging out in here watching football, or doing whatever we do — we’re a very close-knit team. So when something like that happens, I think all of us just get upset. It’s just not right.
“We know what we need to do. We understand the goal. We just have to keep going.”
Harper has embodied that. He has not homered in 28 games, the second-longest drought of his career. He has played through nagging elbow and wrist injuries. He just missed a homer Monday night and did not run hard out of the box. He apologized to manager Rob Thomson immediately afterward. He barely missed another homer Tuesday night. He’s displayed more pull-side power. He just does not have home runs to show for it.
“I feel good,” Harper said. “I just have to keep going.”
So, he settled for three doubles in Tuesday’s win. He is hitting .373/.440/.533 in his last 20 games. He is almost there.
Trea Turner homered twice Tuesday, a notable development considering he had two home runs in his previous 20 games. Uceta, who entered in the eighth inning Tuesday with a 0.74 ERA, had surrendered two extra-base hits in his last 27 1/3 innings since July 1.
The Phillies tagged him for three runs on four hits — three of them for extra bases. After Harper’s third double of the night, Uceta’s frustration was visible. Castellanos noticed.
“I wasn’t even swinging because I thought there was a chance that that could happen,” Castellanos said. “And it happened. I think he was just pissed off that his numbers got messed up.”
Uceta disagreed.
“It was quite the situation,” he told reporters through a team interpreter. “I was struggling a little bit, so I was just trying to locate my pitch. It was a changeup that kind of got away, and obviously it hit him, and that’s not the intention. I wasn’t trying to do it on purpose.”
That changeup was 96.2 mph — the fastest pitch Uceta has thrown all season. “Good kid,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Probably lost his composure a little bit.” This is what angered the Phillies. They beat him. There was no need for anything else. Schwarber assigned some blame to Cash, who might have left his pitcher in too long.
“That just shouldn’t be in the game,” Schwarber said. “To take your frustrations out on a hitter just because you’re getting hit, that’s bulls–t. It’s just not right. … It just doesn’t look good for them. You know what I mean?”
The Phillies are rolling. They have bigger quests than punking a good reliever who had a bad night for a team that will not be playing in October. But they did it anyway.
Wait. Does Castellanos take away his son’s dessert before he’s done with it?
“Of course,” Castellanos said. “Otto’s only allowed so much cake and ice cream.”
They can taste it.
(Top photo: Eric Hartline / Imagn Images)
