The division lead is back up to eight games, they've recaptured the best record in the National League and the Phillies appear to have finally righted the ship this week at home.
Perhaps at season's end, the team meeting Wednesday and the Kyle Schwarber grand slam will stick out as the point things turned back around for a team that had spent most of the summer in possession of baseball's best record. Perhaps, if they slip again, it will be irrelevant in a week.
Facing mediocre left-handed starters from the Nationals has helped, but the Phillies seem to have their swagger back.
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Trea Turner, who walked them off in Friday's win, is 7-for-10 with two doubles and three RBI over the last two games after hitting .165 with a .200 on-base percentage the previous 21. His slump was a big piece of the team's slump.
Bryce Harper has hit .362 over his last 12 games.
Alec Bohm has reached base in 33 straight games, hitting safely in 16 of the last 17. He's driven in six runs the last five games.
Nick Castellanos has been locked in this month and is hitting .302 with an .877 OPS since the All-Star break.
Philadelphia Phillies
J.T. Realmuto is slowly coming around, 8-for-25 with three doubles and a homer the last seven games after going 8-for-45 without an extra-base hit in his first 12 games back from the injured list.
Weston Wilson has emerged as a potentially important right-handed corner outfield option with Austin Hays sidelined by a hamstring injury and Brandon Marsh scuffling. Even if you remove Wilson's cycle on Thursday, he's hit .290 since being recalled from Triple A in mid-July.
Another important piece of the last two nights, obviously, has been starting pitching. Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola dominated a Nationals lineup devoid of power, combining to allow one run over 12⅔ innings. For Wheeler, it was more of the same. For Nola, it was a welcome sign after he struggled with command most of the prior month.
The Phils finish out their homestand this weekend with Cristopher Sanchez facing the Nationals on Saturday and Taijuan Walker going Sunday. Sanchez is looking for a rebound performance after allowing career-highs in runs (7) and hits (12) Sunday in Arizona.
The Nats have another lefty going Saturday in Mackenzie Gore, who's been hammered over his last seven starts, giving up 31 runs in 29⅓ innings while allowing 2.2 baserunners per inning, a huge number. Jake Irvin, who has a 6.23 ERA himself over the last seven starts, pitches Sunday.
This homestand has been easily the Phillies' softest stretch the rest of the season. Six weeks remain:
Aug. 20-25: at Atlanta (3), at Kansas City (3)
Aug. 26-Sept. 1: vs. Houston (3), vs. Atlanta (3)
Sept. 3-8: at Toronto (2), at Miami (4)
Sept. 9-15: vs. Tampa Bay (3), vs. NY Mets (3)
Sept. 16-22: at Milwaukee (3), at NY Mets (4)
Sept. 23-29: vs. Cubs (3), at Washington (3)
Next week's opponents, the Braves and Royals, are fighting for their playoff lives, each currently occupying the third and final wild-card spot in their respective league. The Braves are just a game ahead of the Mets, and the Phillies have six left with Atlanta and seven with New York, so they will help determine whether a second NL East team makes the postseason.
The three games in Milwaukee in late September could also be huge. The Phillies are a half-game ahead of the Dodgers for home-field advantage in the NL, and they're two games ahead of the Brewers. The top two seeds get byes in the wild-card round so there's a huge difference between finishing as the 2-seed as opposed to the 3-seed.
But before all of that comes into play, the Phillies have to finish out the weekend strong. The Nationals have lost 15 of 23 and are simply playing out the string. The Phillies have done a good job the last two nights of jumping on an inferior team early, scoring four runs in the first inning Thursday and two in the third inning Friday. That was a constant theme in the first half that disappeared for two weeks coming out of the All-Star break, but with the top of the order clicking again, the worst appears to be over.