It was kind of a weird one.
Bryce Harper got hurt (hit in the elbow by a pitch). Runs were brutally hard to come by. A rainy Wednesday forced a doubleheader on Thursday.
The Phillies didn't exactly dominate in their series win against the Braves this week, but they continued playing extraordinary winning baseball — improving to 19-7 in the month of May. Bookended by a shutout and 9-3 drubbing, the Phils won in a dogfight in a middle game that saw the clubs combine for 23 hits to take the series 2-1.
Here's a look at a few winners and losers from the three game set that puts the Phillies a comfortable 9.5 games ahead of their division rivals (with the Mets just two back):
Winners
Rafael Marchán
When you're J.T. Realmuto's back up, you don't get to play a lot. Realmuto — who sat out the first game of Thursday's doubleheader — has logged the third most innings behind the plate of any catcher in the game. So it sort of makes sense that Marchán hasn't gotten much rhythm offensively.
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He was one of a select few offensive heroes in the Braves series, however, when he blasted a no doubter two-run homer to put the Phillies on the board with an early 2-0 lead in the early game. He then added a bizarre go-ahead RBI when he was hit by a pitch in the eighth. Prior to the dinger, his first of the year, Marchán had been hitting just .129 with two total RBI. He also made a two enormous defensive plays, doing his best J.T. impression by gunning down two runners trying to steal second:
Doesn't matter who's back there; don't run.@Toyota x #RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/rJoiJD03wr
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 29, 2025
Ranger Suárez
Perhaps last summer wasn't a fluke after all. Suárez was a 2024 NL All-Star and one of the game's most dominant pitchers through last July, but then he suddenly fell off, battling injuries and issues with his stuff throughout the late summer months and fall.
After starting this past season a little late due to lingering injury woes, Suárez started shaky. But he's found his groove. Over his last 26.2 innings, Suárez has allowed just three total runs — all of them coming in the same game. He tossed six scoreless innings in Philly's Game 1 win over the Braves, giving him his third scoreless start in his last four.
Nick Castellanos
Casty had a stretch of six consecutive plate appearances with a single in this series. He wound up going 7-for-12 in the series, with a late double to end a brief 0-for-5 stretch. He's been the definition of a streaky player during his stint in Philly.
Alec Bohm
Another quickie here — as Bohm has now subtly collected a 10-game hit streak. He had a hit in each game against the Braves, and also played a solid first base in a pinch with Harper missing some time after he was hit in the elbow in the opener. However he does lose major points for grounding out with the bases loaded in the fifth in Game 3, a spot that wound up as the Phillies' best chance to score before the finale got out of hand.
Losers
Zack Wheeler
The NL Cy Young runner up faced the man who bested him last fall for the coveted award Thursday in the nightcap, and a four-run fourth inning once again made him come in second place. Chris Sale cruised through six scoreless frames in contrast. Wheeler just didn't have it, walking four Braves — a season high. He'd be tagged for six earned runs in all, his worst showing since last July.
Wheeler was in the midst of some of the best pitching of his career before he allowed a two-RBI double and two-run homer in the team's first loss at home in six games. The righty eclipsed his own career best for consecutive scoreless innings in the second inning, and stretched it to 26 innings. He's also second in the NL in strikeouts.
The pitching staff as a whole has really impressive strikeout numbers. Heading into Thursday's action the Phillies led baseball by a large margin with a 26.9% strikeout rate. Wheeler added six of them Thursday.
Max Kepler
The Phillies' left fielder didn't do anything wrong Thursday — except expecting to hit a home run with Michael Harris II in centerfield.
MICHAEL HARRIS II ROBS A THREE-RUN HOMER 🤯
📺 MLB Network pic.twitter.com/0pgu19DZ2F— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) May 29, 2025
That fly out would have been a home run in 33% of MLB parks. And the insurance run would have been nice too, as they barely skirted by with a 5-4 win in the matinee. Kepler continues to struggle at the plate as well — he had just one hit in the series.
The bullpen
A lot of gushing has been going on lately over the turnaround in the back of the Phillies bullpen. Heck, our own Geoff Mosher got in on the action this week. But Jordan Romano and Matt Strahm were knocked around in the middle game of this series (Joe Ross also gave up a few runs in relief in the series).
Strahm nearly blew Game 2, allowing two runs on three extra base hits in the eighth. Romano – who has held opponents scoreless in 10 of his last 11 games — was somehow able to preserve a one-run save despite a hit and three walks in the ninth (he better should probably get Marchán something nice to thank him for his two pick off throws).
As the rivalry turns
Has one of the best rivalries in baseball lost a little luster? Bryce Harper was hit by a pitch from Spencer Strider in Game 1 of the three-game set and, well, nothing else happened.
No feud. No retaliation. Just the Phillies quietly winning.
They've done a lot of that lately against Atlanta, at least when it counts. Though they haven't won a regular season series against them since 2019, (they've finished one game below .500 against the Braves in each of the last three seasons), they won playoff seres against the Braves in 2022 and 2023, and won the NL East — ending a streak of seven in a row for the Braves — in 2024.
The Braves are struggling to find their form in 2025, and the Phillies have the best record in the National League. Perhaps the rivalry is about to buckle in the other direction.
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