The Philadelphia Phillies scored their first goal of the 2022 National League Championship with a 2-0 victory over the San Diego Padres in Game One. work. In attack, Bryce Harper managed a third straight game, and Kyle Schwarber fired one of the longest home runs in post-season history.
Padres made things interesting against loyalist Jose Alvarado with one on the bottom of the ninth. Jurickson Profar walked, then Juan Soto came up with a player pick thanks to a throwing foul directed at third baseman Alec Bom at Velez. However, Alvarado recalled Mane Machado’s retirement on a flight and Josh Bell on strike to end the game.
The Phillies now hold a 1-0 lead in a best of seven series that will determine who advances to the World Championships to take on the winner of the New York Yankees-Houston Astros ALCS.
Now for some takeaways from game 1.
Wheeler dominated again on the 83-degree walk
Wheeler was through his first two starts in this post-season 2.19 ERA with nine hits and two runs in 12 1/3 innings. Wheeler, who gave Phillies’ Aaron Nola two aces, did better against Padres on Tuesday night: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 8 SO, 1 BB. He didn’t allow a hit until Will Myers’ single in fifth, and made 58 of 83 hits pitches.
Wheeler did not return for the eighth inning after his pace fell in the seventh.
In what was likely an exploratory decision, Wheeler relied on fastball in Game 1 more than he normally does — 52 percent of the time against Padres versus 42.9 percent during the regular season. Mostly, this increased use of fast ball came at the expense of the in-game slider 1. Wheeler made Padres’ squad swing 42 percent of his out-of-area yards, a lofty number. The stellar effort cut Wheeler’s ERA during this season to 1.40 through three starts. He will be lined up to go again in full rest in Game Five on Sunday.
As for Wheeler’s counterpart, Pads ace Yu Darvish, he performed well – 7 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 7 SO, 1 BB. Other than allowing the two runs detailed below, Darvish did well enough to win most of the time, but the San Diego rackets weren’t able to give him any boost. As is usually the case with Darvish, he did three different tunes and generally led them all. Darvish got the loss, but in reality this loss was at the hands of Padres.
Harper stays hot
Bryce Harper is the Phillies’ biggest star, and he’s played like that in post-season. In two Wild Card series games, Harper cut .286/.375/.714 with a one-stroke home run, and followed that up by hitting .500/.529/1.063 with two homeowners in the turbulent four game of the NLDS Braves. So he entered in the first game against Padres with a streak of 0.435 / .480 / .957 in the 2022 post-season. Then in the fourth round of the NLCS Opening, he did it to Darvish’s expense:
This is an excellent job by Harper to stay with the Fastball high and out and go to the opposite field. It wasn’t the most surprising blast of his career – he only traveled 368 feet – but it certainly depends on the scoreboard. It also made Harper the first Philly to join Homer in three consecutive post-season games since Gary Matthews in the 1983 NLCS Championship.
The post-season 2022 marks Harper’s first playoff appearance since 2017, but he’s definitely making the most of it so far.
Schwarber completely destroyed the pitch
We should just skip clearing the throat and wrap the tape on this tape:
The act of war, perpetrated against a bat dervish cutter, left the bat at 119.7 mph, and at 488 feet it was the longest home run recorded in Petco Park history. more:
Given all of that, another angle of things is the least we can do:
Schwarber led the Premier League during the regular season with 46 home runs, but even the above has been struggling during the current post-season. Schwarber entered NLCS Game 1 with a .050/.222/.050 streak for the 2022 playoffs with no home runs in six games. As we continue to emerge from the Little Depression, there isn’t a much better way to do it.
Velez (mostly) is in a good place
In the history of the best-of-seven playoff series in MLB, the team that wins Game 1 goes on to win that series 64.3 percent of the time. Teams that win the first game on the road, as Velez did, go on to win the series in question 59.0 percent of the time. This is good news for Philly. Now here are some of the Padres: The team that wins Game 1 on the road — again, the Phillies in this case — goes on to win Game 2 just 37.2% of the time.
Speaking of Game 2, it’s scheduled for Wednesday in San Diego with 1st court at 4:35 p.m. ET. Nola goes to Phillies against Blake Snell left for Badris.
“Student. Incurable problem solver. Amateur baconaholic. Introvert. Infuriatingly humble music fanatic.”