The louder Citizens Bank Park has booed Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. this weekend, the more comfortable he has looked.<\/p>\n
Every trip to the plate has felt like an event.<\/p>\n
One night after launching a 450-foot homer, staring toward the Phillies\u2019 dugout and slowly making his way around the bases, Acu\u00f1a stepped in as the tying run in the eighth inning Sunday.<\/p>\n
The boos rained down again.<\/p>\n
As the Phillies gathered for a mound visit, Acu\u00f1a raised his arms toward the crowd, encouraging the fans to let him hear it.<\/p>\n
The crack of his bat was almost as loud as the reception.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a launched a game-tying three-run homer off a 100.5 mph fastball from Alex McFarlane, erasing a lead the Phillies had spent the entire afternoon building.<\/p>\n
You could hear a pin drop.<\/p>\n
After another signature trip around the bases, Acu\u00f1a re-emerged from the Braves\u2019 dugout and gave himself a curtain call.<\/p>\n
A road curtain call is almost unheard of.<\/p>\n
But it felt fitting after the way Acu\u00f1a has interacted with Phillies fans all weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, just don\u2019t give up homers in that spot,\u201d McFarlane said when asked about the celebration. \u201cHe can do what he wants. I wasn\u2019t really focused on that. I was focused on making my pitch in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
McFarlane attacked Acu\u00f1a with seven consecutive fastballs. The Braves star fouled off four pitches with two strikes before getting a heater that caught too much of the zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the plan,\u201d McFarlane said. \u201cI trusted myself to make those pitches. Next time, make it more up in the zone, not in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The seven-pitch sequence left another decision to dissect afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that you have the result, you say yes,\u201d Don Mattingly said of potentially changing Acu\u00f1a\u2019s eye level. \u201cBut if he pops him up, you\u2019re like, \u2018You\u2019re good.\u2019 I\u2019m just Monday morning quarterbacking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atlanta scored again in the ninth to hand the Phillies a 5-4 loss at a sun-filled Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n
Mattingly had several options available when the eighth inning began.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured it was a good spot for Alex,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cHe\u2019s been pitching well. Bowlan was last night, and we\u2019ve kind of been seeing that second day, the stuff ticks down a little bit. Alex was rested. He\u2019s been throwing the ball well.\u201d<\/p>\n
McFarlane entered having allowed only one earned run over his first 12 major-league appearances. He retired Mike Yastrzemski before Ha-Seong Kim singled and Ozzie Albies walked, bringing Acu\u00f1a to the plate.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a is now 7-for-12 with two homers through the first three games of the series. The last thing the Phillies needed with the postseason approaching was to awaken Atlanta\u2019s biggest star.<\/p>\n
His eighth-inning swing also helped waste one of Aaron Nola\u2019s most impressive starts of the season.<\/p>\n
Nola held the Braves to one run on four hits over seven innings, walking one and striking out five. It was his seventh consecutive start of at least five innings with three or fewer runs allowed.<\/p>\n
He kept his pitch count under control and attacked all afternoon, generating three first-pitch outs and reaching two strikes against 14 hitters. Nola now owns a 3.26 ERA across 12 starts since the beginning of July.<\/p>\n
The Phillies backed him with two first-inning runs against Tyler Mahle, one of the starting pitchers linked to Philadelphia before Atlanta acquired him at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Kyle Schwarber walked, then advanced to third on an error during a fielder\u2019s choice. Luis Arraez brought him home with a sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
As Schwarber returned to the dugout, he appeared to gesture something toward Alec Bohm.<\/p>\n
Bohm then lined an RBI double that scored Trea Turner.<\/p>\n
That was all the Phillies produced against Mahle, who entered Sunday with a 1.48 ERA in five starts since joining the Braves.<\/p>\n
Derek Hill provided a massive insurance run in the seventh, launching a solo homer and continuing to be the clutch hitter Philadelphia needed. Since joining the Phillies in June, Hill has posted a .999 OPS in the seventh inning or later.<\/p>\n
Schwarber added another solo shot later in the inning. His major league-leading 42nd homer extended the Phillies\u2019 lead to 4-1.<\/p>\n
Those insurance runs looked as if they had put the game away.<\/p>\n
They hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Even after Acu\u00f1a erased the lead, the Braves weren\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n
Albies doubled off Jhoan Duran in the ninth, then Austin Riley drove him home with a triple. Duran had not allowed two extra-base hits in an outing since Aug. 27, 2024, also against the Braves, when he was a member of the Twins.<\/p>\n
For McFarlane, Monday comes quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome to the field the next day, flush it and believe in yourself,\u201d McFarlane said. \u201cDon\u2019t let that moment define you. Accept failure for what it is and continue to keep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The loss dropped the Phillies five games behind Atlanta and officially ended their chance of winning the head-to-head season tiebreaker. The Braves now own seven victories with only four games remaining between the clubs.<\/p>\n
The Phillies appeared to have everything they needed Sunday: seven strong innings from Nola and two late insurance homers.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a took it all away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The louder Citizens Bank Park has booed Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. this weekend, the more comfortable he has looked.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,11350,17086],"class_list":["post-280706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-phillies-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}