{"id":872886,"date":"2026-08-29T17:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T17:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/872886\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T17:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T17:08:20","slug":"angels-tie-record-for-blown-ninth-inning-leads-despite-incredible-hr-robbery-vs-phillies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/872886\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels tie record for blown ninth-inning leads despite incredible HR robbery vs. Phillies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phillies<\/a> late Friday night notched a key 5-3<\/a> victory in their playoff push, and it came courtesy of a record-tying ninth-inning meltdown by the Angels<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The host Angels held a 3-1 lead going into the ninth, and when Luis Arraez<\/a> grounded out to begin the top half of the frame, it pushed the Angels’ chances of prevailing all the way up to 96.5%. Then, however, the familiar unraveling began.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ben Joyce<\/a> put a runner on when he plunked Alec Bohm<\/a> with a 3-1 fastball. Justin Crawford<\/a> then walked, which brought Bryson Stott<\/a> to the plate. Stott yanked a full-count fastball from Joyce to deep right for what seemed like a go-ahead homer for the visiting Phils. And according to Statcast, it would’ve been a homer in 26 of 30 MLB<\/a> parks. Halos right fielder Wade Meckler<\/a>, though, had designs on thievery:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meckler’s highlight snare was good for the second out of the inning, and even with the potential tying run soon to be at the plate, again the Angels still had a 92.8% chance of hanging on and thus not squandering the strong six innings of starter Reid Detmers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next came a wild pitch and then a walk to J.T. Realmuto<\/a> to load the bases. At that point, Angels manager Kurt Suzuki<\/a> went to lefty Sammy Peralta<\/a> in the hopes of neutralizing Brandon Marsh<\/a>. Phils skipper Don Mattingly, however, countered with a pinch-hitter, the right-handed-hitting utility man Edmundo Sosa<\/a>. With a 1-1 count, Sosa found a changeup at the bottom of the zone and sent it 404 feet to center:\u00a0<\/p>\n

That clutch, game-turning moment merits the alternative-view treatment:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, he knew it. That one swing flipped the game. The Angels still had an 85.6% chance of winning the game when Sosa stepped to the plate. By the time the ball landed, the Phillies had a 91.4% chance of prevailing, which they did after the save from Jonathan Bowlan<\/a>. Sosa isn’t far removed from notching a clutch double in the Phillies’ recent stunner of a ninth-inning comeback against the Cardinals<\/a>, but the grand slam in this one puts him on another level of clutchitude.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for the Angels, the blown ninth-inning lead put them in unenviable company. According to CBS Sports Research, the 2026 Angels are now tied with the 2012 Brewers<\/a> and 1978 Mets<\/a> for the most losses after entering the ninth inning with a lead: 11. That’s the most on record since at least 1900.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the Angels are once again irrelevant in the standings, the 75-60 Phillies enter Saturday’s slate in second wild card position in the National League and just a game behind the Cubs<\/a> for top wild card position. In the NL East, they trail the Cubs by five games. Every win matters for a club in such a position, and that adds another layer to Friday’s stunner of a comeback.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies late Friday night notched a key 5-3 victory in their playoff push, and it came courtesy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[24618,17598,64,63,441255,15063,22726,15064,22729,195949,188504,5262,56552,591,2365,5137,441254,251652,286669,85,196212],"class_list":["post-872886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alec-bohm","tag-angels","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-joyce","tag-brandon-marsh","tag-bryson-stott","tag-edmundo-sosa","tag-j-t-realmuto","tag-jonathan-bowlan","tag-justin-crawford","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-luis-arraez","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-phillies","tag-phillies-angels-score","tag-reid-detmers","tag-sammy-peralta","tag-sports","tag-wade-meckler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}