PHILADELPHIA — Bryce Harper celebrated his thirty first birthday with a bang — a 420-foot homer on the primary pitch he noticed within the NL Championship Series.

That merited a particular tribute. As he rounded third base, the Philadelphia Phillies slugger concocted a celebration on the fly: Harper held up three fingers on his left hand and one on his proper and pretended to blow them out like candles on a cake as he crossed the plate.

“Sometimes I just do stuff, and that felt right,” Harper mentioned. “So I thought I would step on home plate and do that.”

Harper retains rising to the second in October, serving to the Phillies take one other step towards successful their first World Series title since 2008.

The two-time NL MVP launched his tenth postseason homer with Philadelphia, Kyle Schwarber hit his first of this postseason and Nick Castellanos additionally went deep once more to energy the Phillies previous the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3 in Game 1 of the NLCS on Monday night time.

Harper additionally walked, scored twice and knocked in two runs to ship the Phillies to their tenth straight house playoff win towards NL groups.

“This guy, he is looking for the moment, and he wants it,” Schwarber mentioned. “He’s doing such an unbelievable job for us. Talking about when he is going up to the plate, you are just thinking that he is going to do something special every single time. Can that be unfair to have an expectation on a player? Sure. But that’s what everyone is thinking when you’re in the dugout. Man, what’s this guy going to do next?”

The identical might be mentioned about Zack Wheeler after one other stellar postseason outing.

Wheeler struck out eight in six innings to assist the defending National League champions win their seventh Game 1 of the final two postseasons. Wheeler sawed two bats in half throughout the first two innings, leaving the Diamondbacks with extra items of busted lumber than hits by 5.

José Alvarado obtained 4 clutch outs on 15 pitches and Craig Kimbrel labored a scoreless ninth for the save.

Arizona was caught with its first lack of the playoffs after ripping off 5 straight wins towards the Brewers and Dodgers.

The Diamondbacks have been merely the most recent staff to unravel beneath the pink storm of 45,396 towel-waving followers at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies by no means gave the gang a purpose to cease cheering — or Arizona an opportunity to catch its breath till it was too late.

Schwarber began the house run derby when he launched Zac Gallen’s first pitch 420 toes into the right-field seats. There was some minor consternation that Schwarber — with 47 homers this season and 93 over the past two — had but to go deep by six playoff video games. How simple it was to overlook that Schwarber didn’t hit any within the Wild Card Series or NLDS final season earlier than he launched six within the NLCS and World Series. So these Schwarbombs would possibly simply be getting began.

“That’s what he does at the start of the game,” Phillies supervisor Rob Thomson mentioned. “He can put the other team on their heels a little bit and get the lead. And we added on tonight.”

Four pitches later, Harper homered to right-center — the primary time in 127 postseason video games Philadelphia went deep twice within the first inning.

“I think they just ambushed him,” Diamondbacks supervisor Torey Lovullo mentioned.

When Castellanos lined his fifth homer of the playoffs within the second — all up to now three video games — it gave the Phillies 32 house runs in 13 postseason video games at Citizens Bank Park over the past two years.

The Kelce Bros accredited. Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce — minus celeb pal Taylor Swift — and Eagles heart Jason Kelce went wild. Travis pointed to his brother as Jason pounded a beer of their suite.

Gallen, a South Jersey native, had his title derisively drawn out to “Galll-ennnn” by Phillies followers every time the 17-game winner obtained right into a jam. Too many occasions, for Arizona.

“That’s an aggressive lineup,” Gallen mentioned. “It’s no secret, they try to get the crowd into it as early as possible and that plays into the aggression. Schwarber and Bryce were just looking for fastballs. They got ‘em in locations they could handle.”

Trea Turner hit a one-double within the third, leaving first base open. Gallen pitched to Harper as an alternative of strolling him and obtained burned by an RBI single for a 4-0 lead.

J.T. Realmuto added an RBI single within the fifth.

Those runs proved essential for the Phillies. Geraldo Perdomo hit a two-run homer off Wheeler within the sixth that made it 5-2.

Seranthony Domínguez opened the door within the seventh for the Diamondbacks when his throwing error on a comebacker led to an unearned run. Alvarado retired pinch-hitter Emmanuel Rivera on a groundout to maintain it 5-3 and tossed a scoreless eighth.

SNAKE EYES

The Diamondbacks, who at 84-78 squeezed into the playoffs as the ultimate NL wild card, have been held to 4 hits. Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte each went 1 for 4 and Christian Walker and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. have been hitless. Gurriel grounded right into a game-ending double play.

“There’s a portion of our lineup that was fairly silent that is very capable of carrying this ballclub,” Lovullo mentioned. “With Zac giving up five runs and that part of the lineup, you know, possibly not contributing the way they normally have or can, it tells me a lot about this team that we’re balanced, and we can be dangerous.”

GOING DEEP

Schwarber‘s fourth leadoff homer within the postseason moved him previous Jimmy Rollins and Derek Jeter for many in baseball historical past.

Harper joined St. Louis’ Kolten Wong, Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria and Kansas City’s Willie Aikens as the one gamers in postseason historical past to homer on his birthday.

Castellanos‘ 5 homers in his final three postseason video games — he hit two in consecutive video games towards Atlanta — made him the second participant to hit these marks. New York Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson did it within the 1977 World Series.

UP NEXT

Arizona sends RHP Merrill Kelly (1-0 postseason, 0.00 ERA) to the mound Tuesday night time in Game 2.

RHP Aaron Nola (2-0 postseason, 1.42 ERA) pitches for the Phillies. Nola is eligible at no cost company following the World Series after he tabled contract talks with the staff in spring coaching. Nola made $16 million this yr on the membership possibility that was a part of the $45 million, four-year deal he signed forward of the 2019 season. He mentioned he desires to remain in Philadelphia.

“I hope so. I really do,” Nola mentioned earlier than the sport. “I love it here. Obviously, it’s the only place I’ve been. I came up through some special times in the rebuilding era, and getting to witness and be a part of a lot of different type of teams.”

Copyright © 2023 The Washington Times, LLC.

Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com