If you feel like you’re watching the same kind of game whenever the Phillies win, your eyes are not deceiving you.
Lean on great starting pitching. Scratch across a few runs, mostly via the homer.
That might be a sustainable formula in October. It is harder to live that way through the summer and into September.
But the Phillies have not found many other ways to win under Don Mattingly, who improved to 24-10 since taking over at the end of April with Thursday’s 6-2 victory over the Padres, their second series sweep of San Diego in a week.
Even the interim skipper knows the Phillies need more than that.
“I don’t think we can think we’re going to win every game 2-1 or 3-2,” Mattingly said. “It’s going to be important for us to be able to tack on runs.”
Philadelphia’s season shifted when Rob Thomson was dismissed. It also shifted when Zack Wheeler returned to the rotation.
And when you dig into the numbers, you can understand just how dominant Wheeler has been in his starts this year.
He struggled with location his last time out. The Dodgers made him pay with four homers Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
You would not have known that watching him toe the slab against San Diego under weekday afternoon sun at Citizens Bank Park.
Seven innings, two hits, two runs, three walks and eight strikeouts.
Dominant.
It gets even better when you look beneath those numbers.
So let’s do that.
TREAD ON WHEELS
From the second Wheeler stepped on the mound, it had the feel of one of those classic Wheeler days, especially with the way the Padres had been swinging the bat.
San Diego entered Thursday at 32-29 with the lowest batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage in the sport.
So seeing Wheeler in a bounce-back spot was a nightmare for the Padres on a getaway day.
Especially against his four-seam fastball.
Wheeler rode that pitch to 5 1/3 no-hit innings to open his start. He leaned on it at a 55 percent clip. His next-highest usage in a start this year was 41.7 percent against the Braves in his first start off the injured list.
Against right-handed hitters, Wheeler had averaged only 29 percent four-seam usage coming in. But against a Padres lineup with seven righties, he attacked with the heater nearly 60 percent of the time.
That was part of the approach.
“With a regular lineup, I usually try to go sinkers in heavy and kind of just play off of that,” Wheeler said. “But we kind of came in with the game plan of staying away, seeing how that goes, and it was playing well early on, so we just kind of stuck with it.”
He leaned on the pitch in all counts, with the velocity ticked up to a 95.8 mph average, too.
Wheeler racked up five strikeouts with the four-seamer, his most of the season. And while he did hang one to Manny Machado for a two-run shot in the seventh, he still threw it for a first-pitch strike 71 percent of the time.
When you have a six-pitch repertoire like Wheeler does, and you have strong command of your four-seam fastball, it opens up the rest of the mix.
That led to a lot of soft contact. And swing and miss — 16 whiffs, his most since his second-to-last start before his injury last season on Aug. 10.
Wheeler said he felt much better mechanically than he did in Los Angeles, when he felt out of whack.
“Something just very small,” Wheeler said. “My step to get my motion going was a little bit too big, and it was pulling me to the side. I just quieted that down, and it allowed me to stay over my back leg and be able to drive it through home.”
Safe to say Adolis knew this one was gone off the bat
GARCÍA NEEDED THAT AGAIN
The Phillies were in desperate need of more production from Adolis García.
Coming into the day, García had the eighth-lowest batting average among 174 qualified hitters at .195. His .578 OPS ranked fourth lowest among 165 qualifiers.
Mattingly dropped him to the No. 8 spot in Wednesday’s lineup. García spent a lot of time on the off-day before the home series working on his swing and trying to get his timing right.
García said that was intentional.
“I think the hitting coaches and I, we’ve been working really hard on finding my swing and getting to that swing that characterizes me as a hitter,” García said through interpreter Diego D’Aniello.
On Thursday, he supplied the Phillies’ first run, driving an RBI double to left-center.
His biggest struggle has been hitting the fastball. On Wednesday, he dug out a sinking heater from Walker Buehler and drove it 108 mph.
On Thursday, he got ahead in the count 2-0 and took two fastballs. Then he got a mistake, something he has not done enough damage with this year.
A hanging 76 mph breaking ball.
He did not miss it.
García hit it 429 feet and 109 mph off the bat. He knew it immediately, bat flipped and extended both arms after the swing before beginning his trot.
Asked what was going through his mind, García smirked.
“That’s me,” he said. “I pimp every homer.”
It was García’s first homer since May 6. If the Phillies can get more production from him, their lineup gets much deeper.
That is especially important for a team in dire need of more right-handed output.
Mattingly sees signs of him starting to build.
“I think he’s gaining confidence,” Mattingly said. “You start to see him swinging the bat. Obviously, the home run. The lineout to center, he crushed. Starting to see more rhythm, better at-bats. So it’s good to see that.”
Trea Turner picked up a RBI base knock, then scored from third on an infield hit. Alec Bohm followed it up with a RBI base hit of his own to make it 6-2.
MORE THAN FOUR?!
Go back to May 18.
The Phillies beat the Reds, 5-4. It was their fourth consecutive game with five or more runs.
Since then?
The Phillies had not scored five or more in a game.
It had been a one-dimensional offense for a while. Entering Thursday, since May 18, they had hit .189, the lowest average in baseball. Their .590 OPS was also the lowest in baseball. They had scored 32 runs in those 13 games, an average of 2.46 per game, also the lowest mark in MLB.
But they had hit 16 homers and had received great starting pitching, with a 2.69 ERA in that stretch.
On Thursday, they did more.
Bryson Stott opened the scoring in the fourth with an opposite-field single, a strong piece of hitting.
Then in the seventh, the Phillies put together some small ball. Justin Crawford walked, stole second and reached third on an errant throw. Trea Turner followed with a much-needed opposite-field RBI single. Bryce Harper singled. Brandon Marsh, with runners on the corners, knocked in Turner on a fielder’s choice. Alec Bohm then drove in a run with a single.
Philadelphia manufactured three runs in the seventh, then held on in the ninth.
It was the kind of inning the Phillies have been searching for.
“A lot of good things happened,” Mattingly said.
They are now four games over .500. They finished the season series 6-0 against the Padres. They also swept the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
That could certainly matter later. The Phillies will have a great chance at tiebreakers against both clubs, and they have already clinched it against San Diego, in the National League Wild Card race.
As of the afternoon, they are in a playoff spot, holding the third and final Wild Card.
The last month-plus has been a much better stretch in South Philadelphia.
And on Thursday, for one inning at least, they found a way to score without waiting for the next ball to leave the yard.