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, just 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. Braves fans roared.
The Phillies were six outs from a season-ending loss and almost certain offseason changes.
But the Phillies won in 10 innings, 4-3, sending the series to Game 3 on Thursday. The start time of Game 3 depends on which series are still active through play on Wednesday. Phillies-Braves will start at 2 p.m. ET unless it is the only remaining series, or if White Sox-Astros is the only other active series. In both of those cases, Phillies-Braves Game 3 would start at 8 p.m. ET and air on NBC and Peacock.
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto said following Tuesday’s gut-wrenching Game 1 loss that the reason he loves baseball so much is because of the roller coaster ride of emotions, even in defeat.
Well, Realmuto experienced the other side less than 24 hours later.
After the Braves took the lead in the seventh, Kyle Schwarber and Harper hit back-to-back home runs to start the eighth inning to tie the game at 3. Schwarber hit Dylan Lee’s 3-2 slider a projected 447 feet. Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. didn’t even bother to turn around to watch the ball leave the ballpark. Harper then smashed a 1-1 slider to right field to tie the game.
It was one of the more dramatic moments in recent Phillies history considering how everything had unfolded in the bottom of the seventh, with the Phillies’ season and future of the organization on the line.
Alec Bohm hit the go-ahead homer in the 10th, his 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).
It made up for his own mistake in the seventh, when Bohm fielded a bunt near the mound and inexplicably tried to get the lead runner at second base. He did not.
Realmuto threw up his arms behind home plate as it happened.
But Harper and Bohm made up for it.
Rookie right-hander Andrew Painter, truly pitching in relief for the first time in his career, pitched the final three innings.
Everybody wondered how he would handle pitching out of the bullpen. It turned out he was fantastic, working around a two-out, two-on jam in the bottom of the 10th to keep the season alive. The final out was appropriately dramatic, a successful ABS challenge by Realmuto to strike out Dominic Smith -- the first game-ending ABS challenge in postseason history.
"When we can keep those challenges for late in the game, we have all the confidence in the world with J.T. using them, and we always want to reserve one for J.T. behind the plate," Painter said. "So just knowing that if we can keep those late in the game, J.T. knows the situation and knows when it's a good time to challenge, and making sure we save them for the right spot."
It all leads to Game 3 on Thursday.