ATLANTA — How does one choose the most surprising part of this game?
Perhaps the honor goes to the Phillies’ offense—a lineup made for slugging that suddenly looked built to manufacture runs. They opened up the scoring with a parade of singles and finished the day without a home run. Bryce Harper had his first sacrifice bunt of the year. Even Kyle Schwarber—yes, that Kyle Schwarber, the one who led the National League in home runs with 46, the one who hasn’t recorded a sac bunt since 2018—showed bunt twice. What’s more surprising than that?
Well, maybe what the afternoon held for Braves starter Max Fried. The ace had lasted at least five innings in all 30 starts he made this year. (Even the one that was cut memorably short with a stomach flu.) But he failed to make it out of the fourth on Tuesday. The lefty has been a beacon of consistency for this rotation, but here, Fried’s fastball was missing a tick and he allowed more runs than he had all season. The two-time Gold Glove winner even had a costly misplay in the field. If anything was more surprising than the Phillies’ offensive approach? It was surely this.
