Brandon Marsh helps Phillies continue best 50-game start in MLB since 116-win 2001 Mariners
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Phillies always seem to have someone perform at a high level during their 36-14 start to the season. The player typically varies.
On Wednesday, it was Brandon Marsh.
Marsh sparked the Phillies' latest victory, an 11-4 blowout of the defending world champion Texas Rangers, with an outfield assist in left field to stop a potential Texas rally that could have put the Phillies in an early hole. With Corey Seager on first base and one out, Adolis García singled on a line drive to Marsh, who threw a rope as the charging Seager was heading toward third base.
Alec Bohm got the tag down on Seager for the second out, firing up starting pitcher Taijuan Walker as a major crisis seemed to be averted. After a walk to Josh Smith, Walker got Jonah Heim to fly out to Marsh to end the inning.
The game was tied 2-2, but that was all the momentum Walker and the Phillies needed as no runs were allowed in the third.
"Oh yeah, that was a good play," Walker said. "I was screaming, too. He saw something different when he plays out there, but it was a good play. Huge too. [It] could have been the complete opposite way, second and third. But to get that out, it was huge. Plays like that really carry the game over. That's how you win games."
The Phillies scored one run in the bottom of the third on J.T. Realmuto's sixth home run to put them ahead for good. Realmuto's homer was also the 14,000th homer in Phillies history.
After Walker finished a 1-2-3 fourth inning, the Phillies scored three in the fourth after Edmundo Sosa drilled a three-run homer to right-center field on the first pitch from Rangers reliever Jonathan Hernandez.
That home run broke the game open, a victory that wasn't certain in the early innings until Marsh's defensive assist changed the momentum in favor of the Phillies.
"He's been really good," Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. "I don't look at the defensive metrics, but somebody said he was the top-rated left fielder in baseball. He's played extremely well and he's had a couple assists over that time. He's taking great routes, he's very consistent. He's a really good defender."
The 2024 Phillies have the best start in the franchise's 142-year history through 50 games at 36-14, the best start for any team since the 2001 Seattle Mariners. This is the best start for any National League team since the 1998 Atlanta Braves.
"What did they do?" Thompson said of those 2001 Mariners. "What did they do at the end? So you gotta keep going. You just gotta keep grinding and keep pushing all the way through."
The Phillies are 28-6 in their last 34 games. No Phillies team has accomplished that feat since the 1895 team when Ed Delahanty was hitting .404 with a major league-leading OBP of .500. Grover Cleveland was in his second term as president and the country had 44 states.
This may be the best stretch of baseball the Phillies have ever been on, as they get standout performances from someone else in the lineup every night. The confidence in the clubhouse is sky-high right now.
"I think we had this same feeling the last couple years," Realmuto said. "It just hasn't happened until later in the year. We kinda got hot after a tough start two years in a row. It feels a lot like the second half of the last two years where we just got confidence. We know that any situation we're put in, we can come through and have a chance to win every game. We just have confidence in ourselves and that just speaks to the culture that we built here."
