Lennon: Fans boost Phils' powerful yield at The Bank
PHILADELPHIA — The 45,712 denizens of Citizens Bank Park were so drunk on raw power during Tuesday night’s Game 3 of the World Series that they did something previously unthinkable for the City of Brotherly Love.
The Philly fans actually cheered Santa Claus.
The place made infamous for booing St. Nick — well, a guy in a Santa suit anyway — couldn’t help itself after watching the Phillies smack five homers off Astros pinata Lance McCullers, who became the first pitcher to surrender that many in a World Series game. And when The Bank plays as small as it did Tuesday for the Phillies in a 7-0 rout that gave them a 2-1 edge in this best-of-seven, that’s a troubling development for the Astros with two more games here.
We’ve seen this movie before. It’s called “A Nightmare on Broad Street,” but more than a decade ago, it involved sluggers such as Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth and Chase Utley mercilessly teeing off on the Mets’ pitching staff. Those three were all in the ballpark Tuesday — Howard and Werth, along with Jimmy Rollins caught ceremonial first pitches — and the vibe, all these years later, felt exactly the same. Only the names have changed.
Bryce Harper got the party started with a two-run blast in the first inning, with Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh adding solo shots in the second. Just when McCullers thought the storm had passed, retiring eight straight, Kyle Schwarber and Rhys Hoskins went back to back to signal his overdue exit. Only then did Astros manager Dusty Baker get the hint to remove what was left of the battered McCullers, who may have been tipping his pitches, or at least giving Harper enough intel to pass along to his accomplices.
“I’m not going to sit here and say anything like that,” McCullers said. “I got whupped. End of story.”
That part is undeniable, but “whupped” feels almost inadequate given the spectacular nature of what went down — and the stakes. Once the Phillies began smacking him around, and the already revved-up crowd had another reason to go berserk, The Bank played more like a high school gym, with Harper & Co. surfing that supercharged atmosphere. When a team feeds off the energy from its own building like that — the Phillies are 6-0 at CBP in this postseason — the home-field advantage becomes a living, breathing entity. Anyone in attendance Tuesday night would tell you that.
“Just walking into the ballpark, just being back home, I think is such a momentum swing for us just for the pure fact of our fan base,” Harper said. “We all come in here and we’re ready to go and we’re excited to get on the field because we know they’re going to show up and there’s going to be 46,0000 people here screaming and yelling and going crazy.”
The Bank was like that from the jump, with the crowd booing the Astros during batting practice, then launching into “Cheaters!” chants for Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, the two faces of the 2017 trash-can-banging champs. The Philly fans even screamed “Check his bat!” at Martin Maldonado, who had to surrender his Albert Pujols model earlier in the series because it was outlawed for safety concerns (not an illegal performance edge).
But as much fun as it was to vocally harass the Astros, nothing compared to watching their Phillies obliterate McCullers, and Harper’s baseball IQ seemed to play a big role in that onslaught. After Harper pulled a two-run shot into the rightfield seats for his sixth homer in 14 games of these playoffs, he called over Bohm from the on-deck circle. The two chatted for a bit, and when Bohm came to the plate leading off the second inning, he pulled the first pitch, a 94-mph sinker, over the leftfield wall.
“I think anytime you have information, you want to be able to give that to your teammates at any point,” said Harper, who didn’t provide any specific clues. “Throughout the whole season we’ve done that.”
Bohm was even less forthcoming, but when asked if Harper’s conversation helped him during that at-bat, he replied, “Maybe.”
We’ll take that as a yes, and after Tuesday’s demolition, the Phillies have to be considered a serious threat to knock out the Astros before this series can even return to Minute Maid Park. Just on sheer force. Schwarber’s 443-foot blast to dead-center in the fifth drove in two runs, but the shock-and-awe effect had to be particularly demoralizing. McCullers spun around in amazement as the ball nearly cleared the ivy-covered batters’ eye in centerfield and appeared headed for the real Liberty Bell downtown.
“Well, it’s pretty evident what kind of threat they pose,” Baker said.
And that threat level may be increasing. The Phillies have been doing it all postseason, and they’re especially dangerous in their own backyard, perhaps now more than ever, with a World Series title only two wins away.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
