In 58 games at Triple-A Lehigh Valley this season, Otto Kemp hit 14 home runs and slugged .594. But in the third game of his major-league career — he helped a desperate Phillies team snap its five-game losing streak by embracing the finer aspects of small ball. The Phillies' two-run rally to beat the Chicago Cubs in 11 innings, 4-3, might have never been completed had Kemp not executed a picture-perfect bunt — so good that an attempted sacrifice became an infield single.
Kemp looked extremely comfortable poking the first pitch he saw onto the infield grass. It begged the question: when was the last time he had to lay down a bunt?
"I think summer ball in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 2021," Kemp said after the game. "I popped it up straight to the catcher."
However, Kemp credited the bunting practice he went through during his years of youth baseball on the West Coast. He got "back into gear," he said, sparked by Phillies manager Rob Thomson approaching him a few days earlier in Pittsburgh to ask whether or not the team could trust him to get a bunt down. He may have left out the detail or two in order to receive a green light.
"Hopefully that's just some more trust that we can do it going forward," Kemp said with a smile.
It goes without saying that these Phillies needed a feel-good moment badly. They were not only losers of their last five games entering this series against a stellar Cubs team, but had dropped nine of their last 10 contests. Much of the blame for the spiral has been cast upon a Bryce Harper-less offense which has gone dormant in recent weeks. When Harper went on the injured list with a wrist ailment, the obvious move for the Phillies was to call up Kemp, the undrafted 25-year-old who has been their most productive minor-league hitter all year.
All night, it felt as if the Phillies were going to suffer yet another heartbreaking defeat. Untimely outs with runners on base and poor decisions on the basepaths by players Thomson suggested after the game were "trying to do too much" restricted them to scoring only two runs despite recording 10 hits in the game's first nine innings. Alec Bohm hit into another brutal, high-leverage double play in the 10th with a chance to walk off the Cubs, who tallied the go-ahead run in the top half of the 11th.
A crowd of 41,226 people occupied the ballpark, but it is difficult to imagine any of them had confidence heading into the bottom of the inning. Not with the way this offense has looked of late.
J.T. Realmuto, the 34-year-old catcher who has so far endured a dreadful season for his standards as he tries to find his timing at the plate again, immediately knotted things up with a run-scoring single:
Atta way, J.T.! pic.twitter.com/cEeXhxUhkR
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) June 10, 2025
Then came Bryson Stott, whose struggles have been so immense that he may be demoted from the leadoff spot on Tuesday. But the one constant with Stott is his knack for making timely situational plays, and he dropped down a bunt so good that he reached base with a single, moving Realmuto into scoring position.
Kemp had already notched two hits on the night — a swinging bunt of sorts in the ninth inning which traveled a whole one foot, and a frozen rope single in the fifth:
First Major League hit for Otto Kemp! pic.twitter.com/7iEErsgLyI
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) June 9, 2025
Philadelphia crowds are ruthless, but they can sense a moment when it is nearing. So as Kemp stepped to the plate, everyone stood in hopes that the rookie would send them home. But Kemp — perhaps because he omitted a certain anecdote from four years earlier in Minnesota — was instructed to move the runners over and pass the baton to Brandon Marsh with one out in the inning.
He accomplished the first part, as his picturesque bunt moved the runners over — but Kemp ended up pumping his fist as he blew past first base with another infield hit.
The efforts of Realmuto, Stott and Kemp, Marsh said, "made the job really easy for me." And when the Cubs went to a five-man infield looking to prevent the game-winning run at all costs, Marsh looked for a pitch he could lift, got one and sent it 380 feet to left-center field for what he believes is the first walk-off hit of his baseball life:
BARK BARK BARK pic.twitter.com/XByfIgUqk1
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) June 10, 2025
Suddenly the Phillies, a team with so little to be excited about of late, could celebrate. It was just what the doctor ordered.
"It's huge," Marsh said. "That's why we show up and come out and play, you know, for moments like that… It was a big win for us."
While Marsh may have delivered the knockout blow himself, he was vociferous in his praise of Kemp. Every player in the clubhouse has experienced their first few days in the bigs, as Thomson said after the game, so the energy surrounding the various firsts he will achieve are naturally going to provide an extra spark.
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One of the firsts Kemp checked off: visiting Citizens Bank Park. He had never stepped foot in the stadium before Monday, he said, partly an intentional decision to "keep it special" when he earned his way there.
"It was kind of just a little bit of motivation," Kemp said, "to keep me pushing and get to this point."
Kemp said he was blown away by the environment, which he called "unbelievable." But he was also flummoxed by the most basic of logistics. Kemp did not even know how to get to the clubhouse on Monday afternoon, he admitted. How did he find his way?
"J.T. was walking in, so I kind of just walked with him and let him take me," Kemp said. "But I was wandering around for the first, probably, 20 minutes. People were a little bit of question marks, like, 'What is this guy doing?'… Just trying to enjoy it."
If he can stir more walk-off wins, Kemp will keep enjoying his time in Philadelphia. Now that he has figured out how to bunt again, he can turn his attention to finding the way from the parking lot to the clubhouse.
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