Phillies sweep of Angels results in feat last done in 1991

The Philadelphia Phillies closed their three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels with a 5-2 win Sunday, completing a sweep and reaching a franchise milestone. Philadelphia recorded its fourth sweep of a series lasting at least three games this month, the first time the team has accomplished that in a single month since August 1991.

The sweep continued a torrid August for the Phillies, who improved to 20-7 this month with one game remaining. Philadelphia has now won 13 of its last 15 games and sits a season-high 17 games above .500.

Zack Wheeler played a huge role in the victory while ending a difficult stretch. The right-hander entered the game after going 0-3 with an 8.38 ERA across his previous four starts and carrying a 7.18 ERA in the second half. He initially ran into trouble again, loading the bases with no outs in the first inning, but a run-scoring double play and a strikeout limited the Angels to one run.

Wheeler settled down afterward and finished six innings with four hits, one run, three walks and six strikeouts. He threw 108 pitches, with his four-seam fastball accounting for half of them while averaging 95.4 mph and reaching 96.3 mph. His sixth-inning strikeout of Jose Siri on a full-count curveball ended another threat and preserved the tie.

The Phillies offense then broke the game open late. JT Realmuto tied the score with a solo homer in the third before Edmundo Sosa launched a go-ahead solo shot in the seventh. Sosa also hit a ninth-inning grand slam in Friday’s 5-3 comeback win and has seven home runs this season. He entered Sunday batting .423 with 15 RBIs in 26 August at-bats.

Philadelphia added two runs in the eighth through Luis Arraez’s pinch-hit sacrifice fly and Brandon Marsh’s pinch-hit RBI single. Bryce Harper followed with an RBI double in the ninth and extended his career-best on-base streak to 32 games.

Alex McFarlane worked a scoreless seventh, while Orion Kerkering logged the final four outs for his second save despite allowing Mike Trout’s ninth-inning RBI double.

The Phillies now head to Arizona for a three-game series with the Diamondbacks, who currently occupy the third NL wild-card spot, 4.5 games behind Philadelphia.

The post Phillies sweep of Angels results in feat last done in 1991 appeared first on ClutchPoints.