Phillies Vs. Nationals: Time to Make Seranthony Dominguez the Closer?

After improving to 15-2 in June, the Phillies on Sunday go for their first five-game road sweep since 1980

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WASHINGTON — These rocking and rolling Phillies have a new hero almost every day

This was supposed to be Yairo Munoz's big day.The utility player, who is 27 years old, was brought up from Triple A on Tuesday. Thursday night, his first hit for the Phillies was a home run. But that happened late in the Washington Nationals' 10-1 loss.

On Saturday, Munoz hit a much more important solo home run, which broke a scoreless tie with the Nationals in the seventh inning. With the way Aaron Nola was pitching, Munoz's home run seemed like it might be all the Phillies needed to score.

The Phillies needed a little bit more offence than that, it turned out. Brad Hand couldn't hold a one-run lead in the ninth, but the Phillies still won 2-1 in 10 innings thanks to a go-ahead hit by Rhys Hoskins and a door-slam save by Seranthony Dominguez.

The win put the Phillies (36-31), who were 8 games under.500 at the end of May, five games above.500 for the first time all season. The Phillies are 15–2 in June and 14–2 since Rob Thomson took over on June 3, when the team was 22–29 and Joe Girardi was fired.

Thomson said after the game, "We're on a pretty good run right now." "We've just got to keep it going. Stay the same. We have a nice club. We knew that when spring training was over. We just didn't get off to the best start."

When Thomson took over, he told the team that they should try to get to.500 as a goal. Once that happened, he told the guys to focus on getting five games over.500.He said with a smile, "It looks like 10."

The Nationals have been beaten by the Phillies four times in three days, and twice of those wins took 10 innings. On Sunday afternoon, they will try to win all five games of a five-game series for the first time since 2001 (when they beat the Marlins at the Vet). The last time the Phillies swept a five-game series on the road was in 1980 at Shea Stadium against the Mets.

This month, almost everything that Thomson has done has turned out well. His choice to switch to Hand after Nola pitched eight innings without a run didn't work out.

After Corey Knebel couldn't do the job, Thomson switched to a "closer by committee" plan earlier in the week. The manager chose left-handed pitcher Hand to start the bottom of the ninth because Juan Soto was up to bat first.

Thomson said of Hand, "That whole pocket was his."

Soto moved up when a ground ball was hit to him. Josh Bell was then out for the second time. The Nationals then sent up right-handed hitter Lane Thomas, who hit a 2-2 slider to right field to tie the game.

The hit cost Nola a victory and made Munoz a real hero.

Thomson said of Munoz's home run and the 1-0 lead it gave the Phillies, "I was hoping it would hold up."As Thomas stepped up to the plate, the right-handed Dominguez was warming up in the bullpen.Have you thought about letting him in?Thomson said, "We thought Hand threw the ball pretty well." "He just broke the ball.

"After Friday's doubleheader, we're trying to use the bullpen as little as possible for the rest of the season" (Sunday). I thought he was all right. He walked Soto, but Nelson Cruz rolled over, and he got a fly ball after that. I thought he was pretty good at throwing the ball."We made it through."

Yes, the Phillies did. Hoskins' RBI hit in the 10th inning helped them win, and the fact that they couldn't score again when the bases were full and there were no outs didn't hurt them.

In the 10th, Dominguez did a great job of keeping the lead. On 10 pitches, three fly balls went to the left. Four times, he went 99 mph. One of them was actually 99.7 mph, so if you want, you can round it up to 100 mph.

Someone asked Thomson if it was time for Dominguez to become the closer.

"We'll see," he said. "We haven't discussed it. We're still in the matching pockets mode. It was great to see what Knebel and (Jeurys) Familia did (Friday night). So if they keep coming, we'll have more people to think about in high-stakes situations."

Without Bryce Harper and with Hoskins taking a break until the 10th, the Phillies could only get one hit off of Washington starter Josiah Gray in the first six innings. Nola has only given up two runs in 23 innings over his last three starts. He could have used more run support, since the Nationals only had four hits and he struck out eight batters.

He said, "That's baseball." "We beat them. That's what really matters.

"That run of nine straight wins to start June was huge. It put us in the mood to win. That was the start of everything."