PHILADELPHIA -- The Phillies desperately needed a game like this one.
On a day when the club had a shorthanded bullpen, Zack Wheeler gave them seven strong innings and the offense scored at least five runs for the first time in more than two weeks in a 6-4 victory over the Padres at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday afternoon. That capped off Philadelphia's second sweep of San Diego in the past 10 days to sweep the season series.
The Phillies (33-29) have been doing plenty of winning lately, as they moved a season-high four games above .500 and into a tie for the second NL Wild Card spot. But they've been doing so following a very specific formula: lights-out starting pitching, just enough offense and a lockdown bullpen.
Entering Thursday, 14 of the Phillies' 32 wins this season had come by exactly one run. That's not only the most one-run wins in the Majors, but it meant that 44% of their victories this season had come by a single run.
Is that really maintainable? Well, probably not if they want to make a deep postseason run.
"I don't think over the course of a season it's super sustainable," said Bryce Harper, who went 1-for-3 and scored a pair of runs. " ... Obviously, as an offense, we want to score more runs, and we need to score more runs. So just got to keep going, keep plugging, do the best we can. We've got to score runs and win games by [more] than one or two runs."
Harper has a point.
Only 5 teams in the Wild Card Era (since 1995) have had at least 44% of their wins come by a single run: the 2019 Giants, 2014 Marlins, 2010 Orioles, 2003 Tigers and 1998 Marlins. Not only did they all finish with a losing record, but their average mark was 63-99.
Of the 524 teams to make the postseason all time, only one had a higher percentage of their victories come in one-run games than the current Phillies. (The 1974 Orioles had 40 of their 91 wins come by one run.)
Now, all that said ... if any team is going to sustain it, it's probably the Phillies.
Need proof?
Consider this: The Phillies' six-run, 10-hit outburst snapped a streak of 13 consecutive games in which they both scored fewer than five runs and tallied fewer than 10 hits. They're one of 78 teams to have such a streak last at least 13 games. Yet of those 78 teams, only two had a winning record during that stretch: The 1945 Tigers (7-6) ... and these Phillies.
That Detroit team went on to win the World Series.
As for the 2026 Phillies, they're better equipped to win these types of games than just about anyone else for two key reasons: Starting pitching and Jhoan Duran.
Including Wheeler's seven innings of two-run ball on Thursday, Philadelphia's rotation now has a 2.79 ERA since interim manager Don Mattingly took over on April 28. That's the best by any starting staff in the Majors.
Meanwhile, closer Duran is a perfect 14-for-14 in save chances this season. He has not allowed a run in those outings, recording 21 K's and allowing only six hits over 13 2/3 innings.
“That's a good feeling when you have a guy like Jhoan that you kind of manage the game to get to the ninth, right?” Mattingly said. “ … It's kind of an eight-inning game.”
Of course, the issue with playing so many close games is that Duran can't always be available. That was the case on Thursday afternoon, which is why it was so important that the Phillies finally scraped together some offense to take a four-run lead into the final frame.
They needed every bit of it as -- with Duran unavailable -- José Alvarado immediately made things interesting in the ninth. He gave up a leadoff walk followed by a two-run homer before eventually finishing things off to secure the Phillies' first win in a non-save situation since May 17 in Pittsburgh.
“I don't think we can think we're going to win every game 2-1 or 3-2,” Mattingly said. “You feel like this club's going to score, but you have to keep working. It's going to be important for us to be able to tack on runs.”
Not just important, but essential.