PHILADELPHIA – Brandon Marsh hit a home run and an RBI triple, Trea Turner launched his sixth longball in nine games and the Philadelphia Phillies completed a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 5-1 victory Thursday night.
Aaron Nola (11-4) struck out nine in six innings and Kyle Schwarber also went deep for the Phillies, who swept the Dodgers for the first time since 2011 — and the first time in Philadelphia since 2008. Los Angeles has lost four straight and eight of 12 overall.
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“(Nola’s) been tremendous,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He’s Mr. Consistency. You look at tonight’s game, and the first two innings he’s in trouble, and he keeps grinding and battling. In the second inning (with the bases loaded) he strikes out (Shohei) Ohtani and gets a groundball from (Will) Smith and gets out of it. Then he settled in and as the game went on, he got better. He’s been dynamite all year.”
In a matchup between the top two teams in the National League, the Phillies led in every inning of the series except for the first one on Tuesday, which ended with both teams scoreless. They outscored the Dodgers 19-5 in the three games.
“I’d be lying if I said we didn’t wake up differently for games like this,” Marsh said. “It’s a big test for us to see where we stand and I think we held our own.”
Marsh clubbed a 3-1 fastball from Landon Knack into the right-field seats leading off the second inning. Marsh then ripped a triple off Knack down the right-field line in the sixth, scoring Nick Castellanos to put the Phillies ahead 3-1.
Marsh is batting .304 with all nine of his homers against right-handed pitchers this season.
“I’m going to take a page out of (Castellanos’) book,” Marsh said. “It’s just see ball, hit ball. Keep it simple. It’s hard enough as it is. The second you try to complicate it even more, it’s just downhill. … Just trust the work and stay stubborn to it.”
Turner hit a solo shot in the first inning off Dodgers opener Anthony Banda (1-2) and added an infield single in the fourth. In the 21 games since he returned to Philadelphia's lineup following a 38-game stint on the injured list with a left hamstring strain, Turner is batting .356 with 11 multi-hit games.
Johan Rojas had an RBI single for Philadelphia and made a leaping catch to rob Gavin Lux of an extra-base hit, bouncing off the outfield wall in two places.
“I’ve always said, every hitter who hits the ball toward me, if he wants it to be a hit, he’s going to have to hit it out,” Rojas said through a translator. "The ball they hit, the ball I catch. If it’s not out, it’s in my glove.”
Nola allowed one run and four hits. His 11 wins rank second in the NL behind Atlanta lefty Chris Sale (12).
Lux provided the only offense for the Dodgers when he homered off the base of the left-field foul pole against Nola in the fifth.
“They’re clearly playing a lot better baseball than we are,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “They’re clearly a better baseball team than we are right now. … Like I always say, no one’s going to feel sorry for you. You've got to play better."
TRAINER'S ROOM
Phillies 1B Bryce Harper returned to the lineup after missing one game with a bruised left hand. Harper took a line drive off his glove hand in the second inning of Tuesday’s game against the Dodgers — his first game back after missing nine with a left hamstring strain.
UP NEXT
Los Angeles turns to LHP James Paxton (7-2, 4.24 ERA) against Tigers All-Star LHP Tarik Skubal (10-3, 2.37) to start a weekend series Friday in Detroit.
The Phillies send All-Star LHP Ranger Suárez (10-3, 2.58 ERA) to the mound against Oakland LHP Hogan Harris (1-3, 3.22) in Philadelphia on Friday.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb