The Philadelphia Phillies set themselves up for a shot at a walk-off win against the Los Angeles Dodgers Tuesday night.
Instead, a pair of baserunning blunders resulted in a bizarre game-ending double play that secured a 2-1 win for the Dodgers.
A JT Realmuto double put runners on second and third for Philadelphia with one out in the bottom of the ninth while trailing 2-1. Brandon Marsh took the plate with two runners in scoring position.
He hit a hard ground ball to third that left Justin Crawford in no-man’s land. The Phillies center fielder had taken a lead off third and got caught up in a rundown between third and home.
The Dodgers successfully executed the rundown and tagged Crawford out near third base. But this wasn’t the big blunder. Crawford was running on contact, and the hard ground ball to third was really just a bit of bad luck.
Realmuto’s mistake is the real culprit here.
Crawford’s out was the second of the inning, and the Phillies could have come out of the situation with runners on the corners after he got tagged out. But Realmuto, who’d safely reached third during the rundown, for some reason ran back to second just before Crawford’s out.
This made for a routine out at second. Mookie Betts threw a perfect strike to Tommy Edman, who successfully applied the tag on Realmuto for the game-ending out.
The chaotic finish preserved the win for Justin Wrobleski, who allowed one run in 6 1/3 innings in a pitchers’ duel against Zack Wheeler. Wheeler picked up the tough-luck loss, having allowed a two-run home run to Max Muncy in the fourth inning for the only Dodgers runs of the night.
The win for the Dodgers evens up the series between the NL rivals and World Series hopefuls on the heels of the Phillies’ 10-7 win Monday night. The rubber match is scheduled for Wednesday.
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