You coach long enough, you learn something about weather delays. An hour and twenty minutes of sitting around in a clubhouse drains a ballclub’s edge faster than anything. Somebody’s got to go out there and re-establish the tone when the tarp comes off. Tuesday night in Philadelphia, the Dodgers found their guy on the mound and their guy at the plate, and that was enough to squeeze out a 2-1 win over the Phillies.
Max Muncy did the heavy lifting with one swing. Zack Wheeler had been dealing — nine strikeouts, no walks, seven innings of the kind of work that makes a hitting coach reach for the antacids. But in the fourth, Muncy got a hold of one to center field, plating Shohei Ohtani ahead of him, and that was the ballgame right there. Two runs. That’s all the Dodgers needed.
The homer also moved Muncy into a tie with Ron Cey for second on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ all-time home run list, trailing only Eric Karros at 270. You don’t hang around that long and produce that kind of power without being a tough out, and Muncy’s been that for years now.
On the mound, Justin Wrobleski gave the Dodgers exactly what they needed — 6⅓ innings, five hits, one run, seven strikeouts. The 26-year-old lefty improved to 11-2 and looked comfortable working in Philadelphia for the second time in a week, having thrown two innings in last Tuesday’s All-Star Game at the same yard. He worked through a persistent drizzle that settled in during the third inning and never let up. The film doesn’t lie — the kid competed.
The Phillies got their lone run early. Alec Bohm singled home a run with two outs in the first, and Bohm was a problem all night — two singles, a double, three hits total. But Wrobleski settled in after that and Wheeler matched him zero for zero until Muncy’s blast.
Then came the ninth inning, and this is where it got ugly for Philadelphia. The Phillies put men on second and third with one out against Tanner Scott, who was brought in to get the final five outs. Brandon Marsh hit a squibber to third. Pinch-runner Justin Crawford broke for home and got tagged out in a rundown. Then J.T. Realmuto, who had reached third, tried to retreat to second and was thrown out. A 5-2-6-4 double play. Ballgame over.
You can draw up rundowns on a chalkboard until the chalk runs out, but if your baserunners aren’t reading the play and communicating, it falls apart. The Phillies ran themselves out of a tying run and maybe a winning one. Scott collected his 15th save, and the Dodgers snapped a two-game skid.
Wheeler, making his first start since declining a late All-Star invitation after feeling slighted by the initial selection process, dropped to 10-2 despite one of his better outings of the year. Sometimes you pitch well enough to win and the offense and the baserunning don’t hold up their end. That’s baseball.
The series wraps Wednesday night with Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola (3-7, 5.68 ERA) facing Dodgers lefty Eric Lauer (4-5, 4.81).