ATLANTA -- Bryce Harper was alone in right field.
He removed his cap and sat in a crouch with two outs in the seventh inning on Wednesday afternoon at Truist Park. Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly had just walked to the mound to remove Cristopher Sánchez from the game, two batters after Harper’s misplay on a fly ball to right sparked Atlanta’s go-ahead two-run rally in Game 2 of the NL Wild Card Series. Guns N’ Roses blasted throughout the ballpark as the Braves reveled in Harper’s misfortune.
“Obviously a world of emotion there,” Harper said. “I'll tell you what. I was thinking about Krew, my son, what I would say to him in that situation.”
The Phillies were six outs from another crushing season-ending loss and perhaps significant offseason changes. But then the unbelievable happened. The Phillies won in 10 innings, 4-3. Kyle Schwarber and Harper hit back-to-back homers in the eighth inning to tie it. Alec Bohm hit an opposite-field homer in the 10th to take the lead. Rookie Andrew Painter pitched three scoreless innings of relief in the first postseason performance of his career.
“What a sport,” Harper said.
“A great gift,” said Jesús Luzardo, celebrating his 29th birthday.
“It’s in our DNA,” Schwarber said. “We’re just not going to quit.”
Thursday's Game 3, airing on NBC and Peacock, will start at 8 p.m. ET.
Sánchez allowed a leadoff walk in the seventh inning to Sean Murphy. Ha-Seong Kim bunted a ball toward the mound. Bohm, who turned a fantastic 3-2-3 double play to end the sixth, inexplicably tried to get the lead runner at second base. He did not.
Two batters later, Harper misjudged Drake Baldwin’s fly ball to right. It tipped over the top of his glove to allow a run to score.
Sánchez found Harper in the dugout afterward.
“I told him that he was bound to have a great moment,” Sánchez said via team interpreter Diego D’Aniello.
“I just tapped him on the butt and said, ‘You’ve got this,’” J.T. Realmuto said.
Schwarber started the inning against Braves left-hander Dylan Lee, who hadn’t allowed a homer to a left-hander in 92 at-bats this season. He hit a 3-2 slider a Statcast-projected 447 feet. Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. didn’t even bother to turn around to watch the ball leave the ballpark.
Harper greeted Schwarber at home plate.
“Hey, man, just try to find a way on,” Schwarber told Harper.
Instead, Harper smashed a 1-1 slider to right field to tie the game.
“I wasn't not trying to hit a homer, I can tell you that,” Harper said. “For me, everybody is going to make mistakes at some point, but it's how you come through in the next situation.
“It's not that serious, to tell you the truth. I think people take it very seriously -- and don't get me wrong, I take it serious. But I think there's a mindset, especially for kids nowadays, is parents and coaches put so much on kids these days to have to come through and be great. But for me, it's, 'How can you learn from each situation that you're in to come out great in the next one?'”
It was one of the more dramatic moments in Phillies postseason history considering how everything had unfolded in the bottom of the seventh inning, with the Phillies’ season and future of the organization on the line.
“What just happened,” reliever Tim Mayza said.
“That wasn’t stressful at all,” Zack Wheeler said.
Painter put up zeros to give the Phillies a chance to win it in the 10th.
“That’s a career-altering performance in my opinion,” Realmuto said.
Bohm hit the go-ahead homer in the 10th against Didier Fuentes.
“I didn't know it was gone until I heard it hit -- kind of rattle against the fence above the wall,” Bohm said.
It was Bohm’s first opposite-field home run since Opening Day. Bohm became the fourth player in Phillies history to hit a go-ahead homer in extra innings of a postseason game, joining George Vukovich (1981 NLDS Game 4), Lenny Dykstra (1993 NLDS Game 5) and Realmuto (2022 World Series Game 1).
“I've seen some great ones that this has happened to,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “I saw one of the greatest. I was at shortstop when Kirk Gibson did his thing off one of the greatest closers [Dennis Eckersley] of all time [in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series]. It comes with the territory when you're pitching late in close games. Every once in a while, they get you.”
But it’s not over yet. The Phillies need to win Thursday to keep their season alive. They are 1-3 in franchise history in win-or-go-home postseason games. They won Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS. They lost Game 7 of the 2023 NLCS, Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS and Game 5 of the 1981 NLDS.
“We have to keep going,” Schwarber said.
Painter struck out Dominic Smith looking on an 0-2 fastball -- after an appropriately dramatic and successful challenge by Realmuto, the first game-ending ABS challenge in postseason history -- to end the game at 5:19 p.m. ET. Trea Turner, who went 1-for-5 with a double, returned to the Phillies’ clubhouse by himself 32 minutes later.
He had just left the batting cage near the visitors’ dugout. He carried two bats in each hand.
He had been working, preparing for Game 3.
“Never a doubt,” Turner said about the win.