NEW YORK \u2013 Derek Hill has become quite the mid-season contributor for the red-hot Phillies.<\/p>\n
Acquired in a trade with the Chicago White Sox two weeks ago, Hill continued his recent heroics in a tight, 2-1 win over the New York Mets at Citi Field on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Starting in center field, Hill made the play of the game \u2013 heck, it might have been the play of the season — when he stole a would-be two-run home run from Juan Soto in the bottom of the first inning.<\/p>\n
Six innings later, Hill led off the top of the seventh with an infield hit and eventually scored the go-ahead run on a two-out base hit by surging Trea Turner.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been quite a three-day run for Hill. He belted a pair of ninth-inning, two-run home runs in back-to-back wins Wednesday and Thursday in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the reason we identified him as a guy who could help us,\u201d manager Don Mattingly said. \u201cYou see the defense and the speed. The at-bats have been good. Everything\u2019s been good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill\u2019s catch came with Zack Wheeler on the mound. Carson Benge had led off the bottom of the first with a base hit. Soto then hit a 0-2 fastball that traveled 397 to right-center. Hill ran 99 feet, according to Statcast, leaped and extended his left arm high above the wall to snare Soto’s drive. It was the best robbery in Queens since the Lufthansa heist.<\/p>\n
Back on the mound, all Wheeler could do was smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the \u2026\u201d Wheeler said before catching himself. \u201cIt is the best one I\u2019ve seen in person. Luckily, I was pitching and I got that one. We tried to go in on (Soto) and it came back over the middle. Right off the bat, I knew he got it. I looked back and (Hill) is on a dead sprint toward the wall. I\u2019m like, \u2018He\u2019s about to get this thing.’ And, sure enough, he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat won the game right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the inning, Hill received a series of high fives from teammates in the dugout. Wheeler hugged him and thanked him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you make a mistake and someone picks you up, it\u2019s a good feeling,\u201d Wheeler said.<\/p>\n
Hill said he\u2019d robbed other homers, but mostly in the minors, and nothing quite like this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I kind of blacked out on it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was pure instinct. I knew I had a chance because the wind was knocking things down a little today. And (right fielder Brandon Marsh) was giving me good comms, letting me know where the wall is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill added that doing it against a player like Soto \u2013 owner of baseball\u2019s largest total contract at 15 years, $765 million \u2013 made it that much \u201ccooler.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler ended up going seven innings and giving up one run as he improved to 8-1 and lowered his ERA to 2.03. He scattered four hits, walked one and struck out five. He helped himself with two pickoffs. Orion Kerkering and Jhoan Duran closed it out with scoreless work in the eighth and ninth.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Friday, the Mets, one of baseball\u2019s most disappointing teams, fired manager Carlos Mendoza.<\/p>\n
The move served as a reminder that two months ago, the Phillies made a similar move when they replaced Rob Thomson with Don Mattingly. The Phillies were 9-19 at the time. In two months under Mattingly, they have gone 37-17 to move firmly into the playoff picture. One game into the second half of the season, they are a season-high 10 games over .500 at 46-36.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels good,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cThe first goal was to get .500, then five over and now 10 over. The next step is 15. It\u2019s been good to get there fairly quickly and put ourselves back in it, put ourselves in a good position. Now, it\u2019s a matter of\u00a0staying consistent at our pace. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phillies were minus-54 in run differential when they made the managerial move. They entered Friday night\u2019s game with a positive run differential (plus 4) for the first time since the opening week of the season.<\/p>\n
In addition to the installment of Mattingly as manager, the Phillies\u2019 season turnaround has largely coincided with the return of Wheeler to the starting rotation on April 25. The Phils are 10-2 in his 12 starts.<\/p>\n
Wheeler received some early support. Turner led off the game with a double against lefty Zach Thornton. Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper followed with singles to put the Phillies up, 1-0. Wheeler allowed a run in the fourth. Turner\u2019s second hit of the game drove home Hill with the go-ahead run in the seventh.<\/p>\n
Turner has four straight two-hit games. He is 14 for 37 (.378) over his last nine games.<\/p>\n
The Phils have won six of their last seven.<\/p>\n
Who knows what this game would have looked like if Hill hadn\u2019t made the catch of the season in the first inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievable,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cThe replay was even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t tell that to Hill. He probably won\u2019t watch the replay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really like to look at stuff like that,\u201d he said. \u201cJust turn the page because tomorrow is coming and they have a good team over there.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 Derek Hill has become quite the mid-season contributor for the red-hot Phillies. Acquired in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,259266,82],"class_list":["post-764618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}