“He’ll probably get nine hits this series,” Bryce Harper said. “You know, just how baseball kind of works.”
With Whit on the Braves they also had to change the signs.
Well, at least Hoffman's not hurt.
If the Phillies were chasing, they might not have let José Alvarado suffer through 34 pitches while he walked four batters and recorded two outs in the eighth inning. Alvarado was the first Phillies pitcher to walk four batters without completing an inning since Dustin McGowan in 2015.
Thomson might have summoned Jeff Hoffman to extinguish it, but Hoffman was told to sit down once Alvarado entered. Thomson did not want to burn Hoffman in a game the Phillies trailed. He did not want to insert rookie Max Lazar into a bases-loaded situation. So, Alvarado had one more batter.
