Alec Bohm delivers first RBI hit since opening day to lead Phillies to a 6-4 win over the Giants
Bohm knocked in a run with a hit for the first time in 19 days to break a 3-3 tie, and Bryce Harper's two-run homer gave the Phillies some insurance runs.
Alec Bohm made a wide turn around first base, and upon retreating to the bag, glanced at the Phillies’ dugout and clapped his hands together three times.
Once for every week he went without an RBI hit.
Maybe that isn’t a long time for some No. 8 hitters. But everyone knows Bohm isn’t a No. 8 hitter. He drove in 97 runs in each of the last two seasons, so 19 days without hitting in a run felt like, well, 19 years.
No wonder Bohm’s teammates exulted after he lined a first-pitch fastball into left field to break a sixth-inning tie in a 6-4 victory over the Giants on a gusty Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park.
» READ MORE: Phillies’ Alec Bohm addresses early-season slump: ‘The game’s trying to teach me a lesson’
“I just want him to enjoy the game,” said Bryce Harper, who made the 25-mph wind out to right field work for him on a towering two-run homer in the seventh inning. “Enjoy the game that he plays. Life could be a lot harder. Life could be a lot tougher.”
Indeed, let Bohm’s big hit on the 104th pitch of the game from future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander serve as a helpful reminder — to Bohm and scuffling roommate Brandon Marsh, too, as much as the fans and talk show hosts who chatter on sports radio — about the risks of overreacting to early-season baseball.
Because a week ago, Bohm was slamming his helmet and moping around the clubhouse amid a 5-for-47 tailspin in which he barreled several balls that didn’t fall for hits. The self-inflicted pressure mounted with each at-bat. Manager Rob Thomson even dropped Bohm in the batting order to help lessen the burden.
Surely, then, Bohm’s first RBI hit since … checks notes … March 27 — opening day in Washington — must’ve been cathartic, even therapeutic.
“Everybody knows that, over the course of 162 games, we’re all going to have our moments, we’re all going to have our struggles,” Bohm said. “It’s a roller coaster. So, it feels good to have 26 guys behind me and the rest of the staff and everybody in the stadium and all that.”
Bohm isn’t alone. Marsh, his closest friend on the team, is hitless in 29 at-bats. He was so despondent after Sunday’s loss in St. Louis that Thomson benched him Monday night to clear his head. Marsh didn’t get a hit in his return, but did lift a sacrifice fly to drive in the Phillies’ second run.
» READ MORE: Extra sessions with hitting coach Kevin Long have Brandon Marsh back in Phillies’ lineup vs. Giants
His spirits seemed to lift, too.
“I just felt like I was me again,” Marsh said. “It felt like, for lack of a better term, just like dancing again in the box, feeling just smooth and just in rhythm.”
Bohm and Marsh have been in the majors long enough now to understand just how small the sample is in mid-April. The Phillies have played 17 games, 10.5% of the schedule. If this was the NFL, it would be halftime of Week 2.
In baseball, surviving the grind of 162 games requires an even keel. Teammates and coaches have tried to emphasize that to Bohm and Marsh. Everyone experiences highs and lows. Harper got thrown out at second base trying to tag up on a medium-depth fly ball in the third inning. He homered in the seventh.
Harper said he thought about the redemptive nature of baseball in the on-deck circle in the third inning. He philosophized about it later, even pointing to Rory McIlroy’s final-round meltdown before an emotional Masters championship.
“It’s a great game we get to play,” Harper said. “Obviously you’re going to go through ups and downs in life and in the season. And it’s a hard thing to do, coming in and playing the game. It is. But at the end of the day, we’re all healthy and strong. Just go out there and enjoy it because it’ll go quick, and you’ll start thinking to yourself, ‘Why did I take it so serious and it’s gone now?’”
Bohm had a chance to put the Phillies ahead in the fourth inning. But with runners on the corners, he grounded into a rally-killing double play against Verlander.
The sixth inning offered a chance for redemption. And when Giants manager Bob Melvin stuck with Verlander, Bohm jumped on a first-pitch fastball and lined it into left field.
“I mean, that’s the game right there, right?” Bohm said. “You think, ‘Oh, there was my chance’ [in the fourth inning]. You can either let that go one way and ruin the rest of the day or just keep playing the game, and the game gives you another opportunity.”
» READ MORE: Everyone is intrigued by the torpedo bat, including the Phillies. Will it be a revolution or a fad?
Taking the first path, as Bohm often does, can cause a slump to spiral. Taking the second is more productive. It’s also more difficult.
“Very difficult,“ Bohm said. ”Otherwise, you wouldn’t see guys around the league getting frustrated and showing it, right? It’s a very humbling game, and I’m feeling very humble right now and all I can do is just keep walking up there and keep working in the cage, keep preparing, keep getting ready for the game and try to get lost in that and take everything else out of it and just do what I can to help the team win.”
Maybe, then, Bohm’s early-season struggle will be another teachable moment in a career that has been filled with them since he made his major league debut in 2020. A month from now, maybe he’ll think back on all of this differently.
“I’d probably try to care a little less about results,” Bohm said. “Whether it’s tomorrow or a week from now or a month from now, I’m going to be a different player for sure. I think just having faith in that and knowing that, and trusting everything I’ve done now, that I’ve worked, I’ve prepared, I’ve done everything I can do.”