Phillies steam plow Brewers in blowout fashion

This Labor Day, the Phillies stymied the Milwaukee Brewers to put themselves just a game and a half back in the east. With the Atlanta Braves facing the struggling Washington Nationals, the Phillies will have to step up in the remaining games in Milwaukee. This is the last team (not including Atlanta) over .500 that the Phillies will face this regular season.

As Sir Didi would say, WHAT. A. GAME.

This afternoon, Brandon Woodruff toed the rubber for the Brewers in hopes to lead his team to a Labor Day victory. Unfortunately for him, that did not go as planned. At the end of his start, he ended up allowing four runs over six plus innings of work. He walked one and struck out six. His bullpen was no help either as they allowed eight runs (seven earned) over just three innings.

In the first, MVP contender Bryce Harper blasted a two-run, 426 foot homerun to give the Phightin Phils an early lead. Woodruff threw a 1-1 fastball up and in, but he missed his spot and left the ball right over the middle of the plate. Surely enough, Bryce capitalized.

The homer fest continued when Freddy Galvis launched his third homerun in four games to give the Phillies a three run lead.

Not enough dingers?

Not to worry, Brad Miller has got you covered.

Miller launched one into the second deck to make it a 4-0 game! He put everything into that 2-0 swing to keep the slugfest alive.

In terms of pitching, Zack Wheeler was excellent. He threw six shutout innings and lowered his ERA to 2.91. His fastball location was on point and he was able to use the cutter/slider combo to keep punching tickets throughout the game. He struck out nine while only allowing five hits. Wheels looked more like the Cy Young candidate that we saw before the All Star break.

In the seventh, Hector Neris punched out the side in between a Rowdy Tellez double. That was the only extra base hit that the Brewers were able to produce. In Neris’ inning, he struck out the 500th batter of his career.

Although, the eighth inning is when the Phillies walked away with it. Andrew McCutchen started the inning off with his 24th homerun of the season. From there, the offense was unstoppable. Brad Boxberger faced five batters and was unable to record an out. Ronald Torreyes singled with the bases loaded and Odubel hit one back to the pitcher, but botched the throw to second when trying to twist a double play. This scored a run and the bases were still juiced with nobody out! Then it was up to Mean Jean. He jacked his first career grand slam to make it 11-0. And yes, you read that right. Despite over 4500 career at-bats and almost 100 homeruns, that was his major league first grand slam.

Matt Moore pitched two strong and Brad Miller hit his second homer of the game to make it a 12 run game. Granted, it was off of Brewers backup catcher Luke Maile.

Aaron Nola will be on the bump for the Phillies Tuesday.