Zac Gallen gives up three home runs early as Philadelphia holds on to take a 1-0 series lead
PHILADELPHIA — Leadoff batter Kyle Schwarber homered on the first pitch he saw Monday night and Bryce Harper went deep one out later for the host Philadelphia Phillies, who withstood a rally by the Arizona Diamondbacks to earn a 5-3 win in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is scheduled for Tuesday night in Philadelphia.
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Schwarber hit Zac Gallen’s 92-mph fastball 420 feet, sending it over the right field fence for his fourth career leadoff homer in the postseason, the most all time. Just four pitches later, Harper, who turned 31 on Monday, also homered on the first pitch of his at-bat to become the fourth player to homer in a playoff game on his birthday.
Harper joined Willie Aikens (1980), current Diamondbacks third baseman Evan Longoria (2013) and Kolten Wong (2015) in the select club.
Nick Castellanos homered in the second for the defending NL champion Phillies, who have 12 homers in their last three games — the most homers in a three-game span by any team in playoff history. Harper and Castellanos have eight of those round-trippers.
The Phillies extended their lead to 5-0 on RBI singles by Harper and J.T. Realmuto in the third and fifth innings, respectively, before the Diamondbacks began mounting a comeback against Zack Wheeler (2-0) and Seranthony Dominguez.
Longoria’s leadoff single in the sixth snapped a streak of 15 straight batters retired by Wheeler before Geraldo Perdomo homered to right two pitches later.
The Diamondbacks, who were 84-78 in the regular season and earned the final wild card before reaching the NLCS for the first time since 2007, inched closer in the seventh. Christian Walker drew a leadoff walk and raced to third when Dominguez threw Gabriel Moreno’s comebacker into center field. After Lourdes Gurriel Jr. lined out, Walker scored on Alek Thomas’ sacrifice fly.
The Diamondbacks again sent the tying run to the plate in the eighth, when Jose Alvarado got Tommy Pham to line out to strand Ketel Marte at first, and in the ninth, when Craig Kimbrel closed out his third save of the playoffs by getting Gurriel to hit into a 5-4-3 double play.
Wheeler gave up two runs on three hits and no walks while striking out eight over six innings. He has a 0.70 WHIP in nine career postseason starts, the lowest WHIP over any nine-start span for any pitcher in postseason history.
Gallen (2-1) gave up the five runs on eight hits and two walks while striking out four over five innings.
–Field Level Media
