ATLANTA — Alec Bohm’s 10th-inning home run completed the Philadelphia Phillies’ comeback and kept their season alive with a 4-3 win over the host Atlanta Braves on Wednesday afternoon, forcing a winner-take-all Game 3 of their National League wild-card series on Thursday.
After the first two batters of the frame were retired, Bohm lifted a 1-1 fastball from Didier Fuentes (0-1) just over the right field fence for his third career postseason homer. His 357-foot shot to the opposite field was his first homer in the playoffs since 2023.
Phillies right-hander Andrew Painter (1-0) entered in the eighth and threw the final three innings. With the tying and winning runs on base and two outs in the 10th, he struck out pinch hitter Dominic Smith with help from an ABS challenge to record the win in his postseason debut.
Bryce Harper and Bohm each had two hits and homered for the Phillies.
Matt Olson had two of the three RBIs for the Braves, who left 11 runners on base and got nothing out of a bases-loaded, one-out situation with the score 1-1 in the sixth.
Trailing 3-1 and down to their final six outs, Philadelphia sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Harper led off the eighth with back-to-back homers off Dylan Lee to tie the game.
By going deep, Harper homer avenged a mistake he made misjudging a fly ball in the seventh that gave Atlanta the lead.
“You’ve got to flush (the mistake) as quick as possible knowing that Lee is coming in the game,” Harper said. “And obviously I was hearing it pretty good from Braves and Phillies fans in the dugout, so got to show up in that situation. Kyle had a great at-bat, and then I wasn’t not trying to hit a homer, I can tell you that. Go up there, hit the homer, 3-3.”
Lee allowed just three home runs in 71 regular-season appearances.
“We’ve been winning those games all year because of our bullpen,” said Braves manager Walt Weiss. “Bullpen has been, like I said all year, our most consistent strength. But some big home runs late by some really good hitters. That’s what got us.”
The dramatic finish overshadowed what had been a stellar pitching duel. Atlanta right-hander Tyler Mahle, who suffered an abdominal pull during warmups according to Weiss, tossed seven innings of one-run ball. He allowed six hits and one walk with six strikeouts in his postseason debut.
“It was right at game time after he came out of the bullpen,” Weiss said of Mahle’s injury. “He ended up working through it, and it got better as the game went on. But we were scrambling early on.”
Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez got through six innings of one-run ball before the Braves tagged him for two more runs in the seventh on Drake Baldwin’s RBI double that Harper misjudged and an Olson sacrifice fly.
Sanchez went 6 2/3 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and five walks while striking out six.
For the second straight day, the Phillies opened the scoring in the first inning as Harper’s single scored Trea Turner after his leadoff double. Mahle got a pair of clutch outs to strand runners on the corners.
The Braves immediately erased that lead when Olson blooped a two-out single to right to score Ronald Acuna Jr., who led off with a walk then stole second and third.
–Curt Weiler, Field Level Media
