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Harper and Alvarado fired up after Phillies finish off another close win originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

ATLANTA — Raisel Iglesias’ fifth pitch of the ninth inning Wednesday night was an 84 mph slider, smack-dab in the middle of the plate.

It didn’t move.

It was exactly what Trea Turner needed to see and he didn’t miss it, demolishing it 402 feet to left field against the Braves’ top reliever to give the Phillies a 4-3 win.

Two innings earlier, Bryce Harper hit a two-run homer off left-hander Dylan Lee to briefly put the Phillies ahead, only for the Braves to fight back quickly with an Austin Riley solo shot off Joe Ross.

Another tight affair from start to finish. The Phils can’t stop playing close games.

“You’ve got to win the tough ones, right? Win the ones that you’re supposed to and then win games like that,” Harper said. “I thought we let the game go yesterday and getting 1-1 there with (Spencer) Schwellenbach tomorrow. Big win right there.”

Wednesday made it six Phillies games in a row decided one or two runs and that already matters because of how taxed the bullpen has been. The Phillies’ series opener at Truist Park began a stretch of 16 straight days with a game, meaning the starters won’t get any extra days and the relievers will be used plenty.

Through 11 games, Matt Strahm and Jose Alvarado have pitched six times and Orion Kerkering and Jordan Romano have made five appearances apiece. Those were the Phillies’ core four leverage relievers entering the season but Romano’s early struggles seem to have already altered the bullpen picture, at least temporarily.

Manager Rob Thomson used three relievers for more than an inning Wednesday. The first was Jose Ruiz, who recorded four outs to get the ball from the fifth inning to the seventh. Ross pitched the seventh and retired the first two hitters he faced to bring up Riley, who tied the game with a homer after popping up with two outs and the bases loaded twice earlier.

Ross picked up five outs and Jose Alvarado secured the final four to finish the game, striking out Sean Murphy with runners on the corners for the 27th out.

“I feel so great, man. I feel great,” Alvarado said. “I changed my routine. The plan I have right now in the fifth inning, it’s good. I need to keep it up like that. I don’t need to change anything.”

It’s helped Alvarado that he firmly knows what his role is this season. He knows he will either be the lefty closing out the game or the lefty used in the seventh or eighth inning if the opponent’s best chance to score has come up. There were times last season when he was fourth, fifth, sixth in the hierarchy.

“Before, you know, it’s hard when you don’t know what’s going on with you because everybody after the fifth or sixth inning, the phone call, everybody panics, ‘Oh, that’s not me,'” he said. “Now everybody’s got a role. You know, today it’s me. Tomorrow, Romano. Everybody needs to be ready. The team is in a good spot. We need to keep it up like that.

“When you have that role, you need to be prepared for that situation. Four outs or maybe save the game or win the game and get ready for the next day back-to-back. I’m so happy they gave me the opportunity tonight to get four outs.”

This was an important game for both Turner and Harper.

Turner had been searching for his stroke. He entered the night with one extra-base hit and a rate of hard-hit balls (19%) that was less than half his career mark (41%).

He reached three times with a walk, single and homer. He’s been walking more so far this season with six in nine games, and he adjusted within the game Wednesday night after chasing three breaking balls in a first-inning strikeout vs. Grant Holmes.

“My swing’s been feeling really good and my work has been really good,” he said. “I feel like I’m getting myself in good counts but just really not getting a lot of pitches to hit. Yesterday, I got some pitches to hit for the first time in a while and just kind of fouled them off, took great swings, just fouled them off. I felt like if I keep swinging at those, and getting myself in those good counts, then it’ll come.”

Harper’s two-run shot was his biggest at-bat in the early going, and he also made a crucial defensive play in the bottom of the eighth. Bryan De La Cruz singled off Ross to start the inning and Jarred Kelenic laid down a bunt, which Harper charged aggressively before firing to second base to nab the lead runner in a tie game.

It was the first time Harper has ever made that play and he was fired up about it postgame, as much if not more so than his bomb.

“I was more excited about that than the homer just because I did it, first time during the game,” he said. “It’s a tough play getting around and getting it in the glove. Felt like I was playing third base again when I was younger.

“You see a lot of first basemen do it from (Matt) Olson to Ryan Zimmerman and who else. … I thought besides the homer, I thought that was the coolest play of the game because I’ve never done it.”

The Phillies are 8-3 and try for a fourth straight series win on Thursday night behind Jesus Luzardo.

Dave Roberts had a feeling as he walked around the clubhouse on Wednesday afternoon.

Over the previous five days, his once-unbeaten Dodgers team had lost four times. The night before, they did so embarrassingly on a frigid night in the country’s capital, striking out 15 times in a six-run loss to the rebuilding Washington Nationals.

In that defeat, Roberts was particularly perturbed by the club’s quality of at-bats — or lack thereof.

“The at-bats collectively haven’t been ‘team’ at-bats, and the results are showing,” Roberts said Tuesday night.

"I just don’t think 15 strikeouts with our ballclub should happen,” he reiterated in his pregame media scrum Wednesday.

Read more:Without Blake Snell, Dodgers' highly touted pitching depth falters in loss to Nationals

By then, however, Roberts had noticed a renewed intensity from the group in their afternoon preparation — hopeful that Tuesday’s blowout, and an overall frustrating first trip in which they’d already clinched back-to-back series losses, would serve as the catalyst for a much-needed getaway day win.

“You don’t want to get swept by these guys. That wouldn’t be a good thing,” Roberts said, with the Dodgers having already lost twice this week at Nationals Park. “I think our guys have a good look today. There’s a sense of pride … I think you’ll see a different focus today. I expect us to perform today.”

In a 6-5 win over the Nationals, the Dodgers performed just enough; building, then blowing, an early four-run lead before finally prevailing behind a go-ahead seventh-inning rally.

With the sun finally out, and this week’s freezing East Coast temperatures finally warming up, the Dodgers got off to a blistering start Wednesday.

Shohei Ohtani hit a leadoff single. Mookie Betts put two aboard with a walk. Tommy Edman drove them both in with a triple into the right-field corner. Then Teoscar Hernández left the yard for a two-run shot.

Four batters in, it was 4-0.

The lead, however, wouldn’t last.

Nationals starter Jake Irvin found a groove, retiring 18 of the 21 batters he faced the rest of the way in what turned into a decent six-inning start.

Dodgers starter Landon Knack, on the other hand, faltered in his return to the big-league roster, giving up three runs in the bottom of the first (it would have been more if not for an inning-ending play Betts made deep in the hole at shortstop) then two more while getting pulled in the third.

The Nationals’ 5-4 lead lasted until Irvin exited the game at the start of the seventh — opening the door for the Dodgers to finally answer back.

Andy Pages started the rally by whacking his second home run in two nights, busting out of his early-season slump with a game-tying drive to left in an 0-and-2 count.

Then, Ohtani reached on a booted grounder to second. Edman drew a two-out walk. And with runners on the corners, Hernández lifted a bloop single just over the head of second baseman Luis García Jr. in shallow right field, plating the go-ahead run with his 16th RBI of the season (tied for most in the National League).

The Dodgers’ offense wouldn’t tack on again, finishing the day with nine more strikeouts.

But that was enough on a day the team’s lockdown bullpen combined for 6 ⅔ scoreless innings — avoiding what would have been their first three-game series sweep since last July, and validating Roberts’ pregame confidence.

Freddie Freeman expected back Friday

When the Dodgers return to Los Angeles for the start of a six-game homestand Friday, they’ll get an important boost to the lineup.

As was initially expected, injured first baseman Freddie Freeman is on track to be back on the field Friday night, after missing the team’s last nine games after re-aggravating his surgically repaired right ankle slipping in the shower earlier this month.

Read more:After 'honor' of White House visit, Shohei Ohtani picking up where he left off in 2024

Freeman stayed back in California during the team’s trip this week, taking live batting practice at-bats against minor-league pitchers the last several days. More encouraging, according to Roberts, has been the way Freeman looked in baserunning drills the major-league coaching staff watched via video.

"Just looking at his gait running yesterday, I would say that it's better than it was when he started the season,” Roberts said.

“If nothing changes, he'll be in the lineup on Friday."

Freeman has played just three games so far this season. He sat out during the team’s season-opening series in Tokyo after feeling discomfort in the same area of his ribs he suffered torn cartilage during last year’s playoffs. And even before his shower mishap, his right ankle had not yet returned to 100% from the severe sprain he played through last October; an injury that led to a December debridement surgery to remove loose bodies.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Yankees went into the ninth inning of Wednesday’s game against the Detroit Tigers feeling pretty good about themselves.

After the offense was held in check for most of the last three days, the Yankees were three outs away from salvaging the final game of the series after scoring four late runs. Manager Aaron Boone tasked closer Devin Williams with sealing the win, but it didn’t go as planned.

After getting two of the first three batters Williams faced out, the Tigers loaded the bases. A wild pitch and a two-run single later, and the Yankees’ four-run lead was cut to one.

The Yankees skipper, not wanting to risk the win, pulled his closer for Mark Leiter Jr., who got the final out in the 4-3 win, ending New York’s three-game losing streak.

It’s alarming to see Williams, who was dominant last season pitching to a 1.25 ERA in 22 appearances with the Milwaukee Brewers after returning from injury, struggle so mightily.

But the Yankees skipper isn’t concerned with his closer’s performance so far this season.

“I don’t think it’s far off,” Boone said of Williams’ pitches after the game. “I thought we saw more velocity in there when he needed it. It’s just that next level of execution. He’ll get there. Credit to [the Tigers] too for laying off a lot of tough pitches but just being more in the zone.”

In four appearances this season, Williams has allowed four earned runs in just 3.0 innings pitched. We had the nail-biter on Opening Day when he allowed one run on two hits and a walk before ultimately completing the save.

And then we had the series finale in Pittsburgh this past Sunday when he allowed the ghost runner to score the winning run in the 11th, before nearly blowing the save on Wednesday.

Williams admitted he is still figuring things out this season and there’s nothing physically wrong with him, but he's still "figuring stuff out," and just needs more game reps and to better execute his pitches.

"I haven't felt like 100 percent myself up to this point, but I would say I'm getting closer," Williams told the media including the NY Post’s Greg Joyce after the game.

Entering Wednesday, Williams has a career 3.03 ERA in the months of March and April, by far the highest for any month in his career.

Boone pointed to Williams’ recent absence when he went on the paternity list as a part of his closer’s early-season struggles and thinks once the team gets into a “flow” the Williams of old will emerge.

“I’m confident this is going to be a distant memory as we continue to move forward,” Boone said. “He’s not far off. Just a little better strike-throwing. Once he starts doing that and dictating counts, then you’re going to see it because his stuff is not far off. This is his fourth outing. He’ll be fine, he’ll get through this. Just early part of the season."

The Yankees return home after a 3-3 road trip and will host the San Francisco Giants in the Bronx this weekend starting Friday.

Perhaps returning home, in warmer weather than Detroit, will help Williams come out of hibernation.