I have a confession to make: I haven’t watched Field of Dreams. I intended to watch it last night, but I ended up watching The Long Goodbye instead. In my defense, that’s sort of related to baseball, since Jim Bouton is in it. Anyway, I’m going to substitute some Bull Durham references, since that’s a Kevin Costner baseball film that I have seen; it’s close enough. Bull Durham is somewhat risqué, and this is a family friendly blog, so I’ll be mindful; I’m not going to suggest that anyone playing tonight could benefit from having a fan read Walt Whitman to them.
Kyle Schwarber wasted no time in getting cinematic, blasting a fastball that caught the middle-inside of the plate deep into the maize. Bryce Harper walked, and Luis Arraez singled up the middle to put runners on the corners. Bryson Stott singled to left-center, scoring Harper. “Oh, my stars and garters,”, said the old-timey fans watching the game (speaking of garters, Annie Savoy would surely have advice for Minnesota starter Taj Bradley about how to deal with a rough patch).
Aaron Nola also had a rocky first, allowing two of his first three batters to reach, the second on a tiny little dribbler. Ground balls may be more democratic, but Nola decided not to embrace that particular philosophy, putting the next two Twins down without allowing the ball to touch the ground. Unfortunately, the ball hit by Luke Keaschall in the second also did not touch the ground, at least not until it found the corn over the left field wall.
In the fourth, Brandon Marsh worked a leadoff walk, then stole second; he was called out, but the film reel was rewound, and upon a second viewing he was deemed safe. Kyle Schwarber, knowing that a cinematic event calls for a sequel, smacked another ball out to right; Keaschall leapt and got a glove on it, but the ball bounced off and into the corn. Kyle Schwarber believes in the soul, the hanging curveball, opening your Christmas presents on Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and he believes in long, slow, deep moonshots that take three days to land (what he thinks about the novels of Susan Sontag is unknown). Trea Turner doubled, Harper singled, and the score was 5-1.
Save for that solo shot, Nola had cruised through four. In the fifth, allowed a two-out double up the third base line in the bottom fifth, then walked the next batter, and then the next, and suddenly slow cinema became a thriller. Royce Lewis came to the plate with the bases loaded, representing the tying run. Nola rose to the moment, putting him away on a trio of pitches: knuckle curve, four-seamer, knuckle curve.
That ended Nola’s night (1 ER, 5 H, 9 K, 3 BB), with Brooks Raley his successor. He allowed a double, but kept the Twins from scoring; it’s very unfitting for a team with that name to have just a single run. The Phillies had no such problems: Alec Bohm doubled to deep center, and Marsh pulled a fly ball into the corn in right, and the Phillies had seven runs.
Orion Kerkering took the mound in the eighth, as Derek Hill took to right field in place of Harper. Kerkering put the Twins down in order.
The Twins entered the ninth dreaming of their Hollywood miracle. They did what they needed to in the top of the inning, surrendering no more runs. But the tall task was yet to come. Facing Jhoan Duran down by any amount is imposing; facing him down by a half dozen is petrifying. He wanted to announce his presence with authority, and did. The Twins managed a hit against him, and no more.
The Phillies are 65-58. They’ll return to action on Saturday at 7:10 in Minnesota.