Breakthrough 7-run 8th inning lifts Phillies’ mood after avoiding series sweep against Braves

ATLANTA (AP) — Even after losing a three-game weekend series and season series to the Atlanta Braves, the Philadelphia Phillies found reason for encouragement on Sunday while avoiding a series sweep and ending a three-game skid.

A seven-run eighth inning was just the mood lifter the Phillies needed.

With the game tied at 2-2, the Phillies had eight hits and sent 12 batters to the plate in the big inning to take a 9-2 lead in Sunday’s 9-4 win. Kyle Schwarber had two hits, including a two-run single, in the inning. Alec Bohm hit a tiebreaking, two-run double in the inning.

Schwarber said before the breakthrough inning, the Phillies had been “given opportunities to be in spots, go up there and score runs, you know, and didn’t get the job done.

“If we keep finding ourselves in spots like that, we’re all going to trust ourselves that we’re going to get that job done. And I think that kind of proves the point there.”

The Braves won two of three in the series to win the season series 9-4. The teams split a four-game series in Philadelphia Sept. 4-7.

The Phillies avoided the series sweep but still lost ground to the first-place Braves. The Phillies were four games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East at the start of the series and now are five games behind. The Braves won the opener 6-5 in 11 innings on Friday night before rolling to a 12-2 win on Saturday night.

The Phillies may not catch Atlanta in the division race with only 12 games remaining in the regular season, but manager Don Mattingly said his focus is to simply make the playoffs. With that in mind, the breakout inning was especially important.

“Finally to get the breakthrough and put some runs up was huge obviously for us,” Mattingly said.

When asked if the inning could provide momentum for the remainder of the regular season, Mattingly said “Yeah, honestly, you hope that, but it’s just day to day. At this point, you’ve got to try to win a game every day and just keep fighting. Get yourself to the finish line.”

Mattingly said another positive for the Phillies was right-hander Andrew Painter, who allowed only one run in five innings despite giving up six hits and four walks.

“The one thing you’ve got to like is him kind of fighting through traffic, getting big outs, get out of innings, not letting anything kind of get rolling,” Mattingly said. “So yeah, it’s kind of a day when you feel like he doesn’t have his best stuff or command but hangs in there, so that’s a nice sign for him.”

Painter acknowledged “it was a grind out there” and added “the four walks just can’t happen.”

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