PHILADELPHIA — The wind swept in, the skies went dark and the afternoon turned soggy, but nothing was going to stand in the way of the party. Not Yu Darvish, not the San Diego Padres and their vaunted bullpen and, certainly, not Mother Nature.
Bryce Harper made sure of it.
Authoring a postseason for the ages in his adopted hometown after signing a 13-year, $330 million deal, Harper smashed a two-run homer off the Padres right-handed reliever Robert Suarez with no outs in the eighth inning to launch the Philadelphia Phillies into the World Series.
Their 4-3 victory gave the Phillies the eighth National League pennant in franchise history on a wet, chilly afternoon. They will play either the Houston Astros or the Yankees in the 118th World Series, which is scheduled to begin on Friday.
Harper’s homer came with Josh Hader, the left-handed closer of the Padres, heating up in the bullpen. Hader would have been an option against the left-handed-hitting Harper, but Padres Manager Bob Melvin likely felt that asking for a six-out save would be too much.
Call it more home magic for the Phillies, who emphasized a message that has been building over time: Don’t mess with them in October at Citizens Bank Park.
This month, with their own Murderers’ Row of Kyle Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Harper and Nick Castellanos and behind starters Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola and the ace relievers Seranthony Domínguez and José Alvarado, the Phillies took the best shots from San Diego and Atlanta and barely flinched.
They are 5-0 at home this postseason. And they are 20-9 in their current stadium, which opened in 2004. Since Oct. 3, 2007, the day of the first postseason game in Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies’ .690 winning percentage is best in the majors, ahead of Houston’s home winning percentage in Minute Maid Park (.651), Boston’s at Fenway Park (.649), San Francisco’s at Oracle Park (.643) and Los Angeles’s in Dodger Stadium (.623).
Of course, that is about to be sternly tested when the World Series begins. The Astros entered Game 4 of their American League Championship Series in New York on Sunday evening still unbeaten for the postseason.
There was no thought of that, however, as the Phillies, the last team of six in the N.L. to earn a playoff spot this season, celebrated in the late afternoon chill.
The immediate reasons that sent them into their celebration were familiar. Harper. Hoskins, who crushed his third two-run homer in two games in the third inning. And the right-hander Wheeler, who again kept the Padres in check.
It was Hoskins who sent the Phillies to a 2-0 lead in the third inning. But Juan Soto, who has been disappointing since the Padres acquired him from Washington in a trade on Aug. 2, blasted his second homer in two nights with one out in the fourth to trim the Phillies’ lead to 2-1. It was a 96-mile-per-hour fastball from Wheeler, and the left-handed-hitting Soto drove it 439 feet over the center-field fence.
The homer briefly signaled that perhaps San Diego could figure out Wheeler. The run broke Wheeler’s streak of throwing 28⅔ consecutive scoreless innings against the Padres, combining regular season and postseason, going back to July 24, 2018. It ranked as the longest current streak in the majors by a starting pitcher against a single opponent.
Already facing elimination and knowing they needed not only one win to send the series back to San Diego but three consecutive wins to reach their first World Series since 1998, the Padres knew it was a tall task.
“We’re going to have to hit his fastball at some point, right?” Melvin said before the game.
Melvin pointed out that in Wheeler’s Game 1 dominance (seven shutout innings), Wheeler used his fastball early, and when he read the Padres’ plan to be aggressive against it, he adapted to use more to breaking stuff as the game went along.
“We have a decent idea how he’s going to attack us based on he had success, and you wouldn’t think he’d alter that,” Melvin said.
The plan was to make Wheeler work, make him get the ball down in the strike zone and then, as Melvin said, “hopefully hit some fastballs.”
There appeared to be a brief opening when Jake Cronenworth’s leadoff single in the seventh drove Wheeler from the game. Dominguez, apparently having difficulty with the rain, threw three wild pitches in the inning, which sent the Padres into a 3-2 lead.
But the Phillies got just what they needed in the eighth inning when Harper’s turn to bat came around. Suarez threw him a 98 m.p.h. sinker that stayed belt high and over the plate. Harper reached out and belted it the opposite way, over the left field wall, and all of Philadelphia seemed to erupt. When the left-hander Ranger Suárez closed out the final two outs of the ninth inning, the Phillies were going to the World Series.