Sprits inside Citizens Bank Park were low when Bryce Harper came up to the plate with one out in the top of the fourth inning. Not even 24 hours after the Phillies had been manhandled, 11-3, by the rival New York Mets, they appeared headed for another blowout loss. They were already trailing 4-0 after the Mets jumped on Phillies lefty starter Kolby Allard, who only lasted three innings after being recalled from Triple-A to rejoin the team’s starting rotation.
Meanwhile, Mets starter Luis Severino was absolutely cruising. The veteran right-hander had only allowed one base-runner to that point and appeared to be in peak form. On the first pitch he saw, Harper smoked a changeup into left-center field for a home run — his first time going yard since Aug. 9.
Harper’s 36-day power outage had finally ended, and while his power outages are rare, they are almost always followed by power surges. And when Harper returned to the plate in the sixth inning after Trea Turner drew a two-out walk against Severino, he worked a seven-pitch at-bat that ended with — you guessed it — another home run, this time a two-run blast to right field.
Typically, a stretch like this is considered a “slump.” But Harper has racked up singles and doubles for a month-plus despite a lack of fireworks. Seeing a pair of baseballs go into the seats was not as cathartic as it might have been otherwise.
“I’d go another 200 at-bats without [a home run],” Harper said. “I’m having good at-bats, we’re winning games.”
Suddenly, though, the ballpark Harper calls home had life. And over the next hour and a half or so, that ballpark became the place to be. No September game will be a must-win for the 2024 Phillies, who have enough wins built in that they can prioritize health over short-term gains for the next few weeks. But if the murmurs in the ballpark — oftentimes drowned out by the cheers of Mets fans — were any indication, Saturday’s game felt like a must-win to many.
So, of course it was Harper, one of the single most recognizable names and faces in recent baseball history, the $330 million man, two-time Most Valuable Player, 2022 NLCS MVP with a laundry list of signature moments as a member of the Phillies, who rose to the occasion. The man who many call “The Showman” was exactly that, finally finding his power exactly when his team needed it most.
While Harper, staging a pair of vintage Harper moments, was the likeliest hero imaginable on a September day like this, it was two of the least likely heroes anybody could have anticipated who enabled the Phillies to complete a remarkable comeback and defeat the red-hot Mets, 6-4, shrinking their magic number in the National League East to seven games.
Cal Stevenson is 28 years old, and he has never spent more than 25 consecutive days on a major-league roster. He was traded three times in four years before ever appearing in a major-league game. Stevenson was designated for assignment twice before landing with the Phillies in May of 2023. The Phillies DFA’d Stevenson six days later, marking the third time he was sent through waivers, but that time he went unclaimed. Stevenson stayed in the Phillies minor league system, his future very much uncertain.
An excellent approach at the plate combined with impressive bat-to-ball skills allowed Stevenson to reenter the picture, culminating in a major-league call-up after injuries began piling up for the Phillies. Stevenson’s first day with the team’s major-league club was the same date — Aug. 9 — as Harper’s last homer before his two blasts on Saturday. Two weeks later, though, he was optioned back to Triple-A.
Injuries mounted again, and so there Stevenson was, starting in center field in a crucial divisional matchup for the team with the best record in the majors. A base hit up the middle by Stevenson represented the team’s lone base-runner before Harper’s first home run.
The stakes were much higher when Stevenson came up to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning. Harper’s pair of blasts had brought the Phillies within a run, but the Mets still held the lead. With two outs and two runners in scoring position for the Phillies, it was Stevenson — their nine-hole hitter — who held a bat in his hands. On the sixth pitch he saw from Mets reliever Reed Garrett, Stevenson smoked a picture-perfect cutter off the right field wall at over 103 miles per hour to drive in two runs and give the Phillies their first lead of the game.
“It felt good to come through for the guys, with two outs especially, late in the game,” Stevenson said. “I told myself to relax a little bit.”
Stevenson’s crucial double came late in the game, but the contest was not over. The Phillies had six more outs to get, and so Stevenson calmly jogged out to center field, where he received a nice ovation from the fans in left- and right-center. All-Star relief pitcher Jeff Hoffman entered the game, and the first batter he faced was six-time All-Star and three-time Silver Slugger, J.D. Martinez. Martinez got a hold of a slider over the middle of the plate and blasted it to deep center.
Martinez crushed it, and the ball had an estimated distance of 404 feet. The ballpark’s center field wall is 401 feet away from home plate. But Stevenson tracked the ball, leapt in the air and robbed Martinez of what would have been a game-tying solo shot. He did it right in front of a Phillies bullpen that erupted and a crowd of well over 44,000 spectators that were in awe of what Stevenson had managed to do in just minutes.
“It kind of moves in slow motion,” Stevenson said. “When it’s up there, you know you have time.”
Stevenson entered 2024 with 36 days of major-league service time under his belt. He has only added a few more week’s worth of days to that total over the last two months. Surely, this day was the most emotional and enjoyable.
“Obviously, you think [whether you belong] a little bit,” Stevenson said. “I think that’s what makes me feel so good about being in that situation and coming through… I can’t even explain how it feels and what it means to be a part of it.”
Earlier this season, meanwhile, Taijuan Walker reached 10 years of service time — a massive accomplishment. According to the Phillies’ game notes on Saturday, approximately 1,600 players — less than seven percent of all major-league players in history — have reached that benchmark.
For many, it would be a cause for year-long celebration. But Walker has had the season from hell in 2024: an injury delayed his season debut by a month, he looked ineffective and went back on the injured list for nearly two months, then came back and looked less effective.
In the second season of a four-year contract that netted Walker $72 million and massive expectations, Walker’s roster spot appeared to be in jeopardy. In an unrelenting media market like Philadelphia, it is the kind of situation that swallows players up. But the Phillies opted to move Walker to the bullpen and have raved about his professionalism as he takes to a new role.
“He’s a great teammate,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He’s a real pro… He’s working hard and doing everything he needs to do.”
This transition has been a work in progress for Walker, who in his first pair of outings out of the bullpen surrendered four earned runs in as many combined innings. But after Allard had an outing that Phillies manager Rob Thomson called “erratic,” the skipper summoned Walker to give the Phillies multiple innings of relief.
Suddenly, Walker showed flashes of the pitcher the Phillies thought they were getting ahead of the 2023 season. He tossed three scoreless frames, exhibiting excellent command and — finally — an uptick in velocity. Walker threw all of pitches harder than he has all year, and the increased velocity on his fastball in particular allowed him to be much more effective with his splitter, the pitch that once made him great but has eluded him for much of the season.
“Today was the best I’ve felt all year, probably,” Walker said. “I felt like my normal self today.”
What was perhaps just as significant as how Walker felt from a physical perspective as he kept Mets hitters off-balance was the emotional burden that was lifted off his shoulders. The Phillies lost each of Walker’s last nine starts before his exodus from the rotation. Even on Saturday, boos rained down when Phillies public address announcer Dan Baker announced Walker was entering the game.
But the Phillies would not have won this game without Walker’s three innings of work.
“It feels good when you can help the team,” Walker said before giving an honest assessment. “I feel like I haven’t done a good job helping the team this year, so any little way I can help… I’m happy I was able to do it today. A big one for us.”
In some sports, a few individuals can carry the load for the rest of the bunch. But over the course of an 162-game regular season, a baseball team is reliant on as many contributors as possible. The best hitters only bat four or five times per game; the best pitchers only take the mound for every fifth game.
Nearly every World Series-winning group has star players like Harper. But baseball teams are often only as good as their weakest links.
By definition, the Phillies’ weakest links in this game should have been Stevenson, a nine-hole hitter with very little major-league experience, and Walker, a pitcher who had not made a scoreless appearance in 462 days.
The Phillies believe they are World Series material because they can rely on superstars like Harper to rise to occasions like this one while also asking a wide variety of contributors to get the job done each and every day. On Saturday, that formula worked to perfection.
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