Wisdom, Rivas homer as Cubs beat fading Phillies 6-3

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Patrick Wisdom and Alfonso Rivas hit back-to-back homers for the Chicago Cubs in a 6-3 win over a Philadelphia Phillies team running out of time to make a serious run in the NL playoff race.

The Phillies lost again to another team long out of the postseason hunt. The Phillies just dropped three of four at home to Colorado, which is 21-51 on the road.

The Phillies remained 4½ games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East and 2½ games behind Cincinnati in the wild-card race. San Diego and St. Louis are ahead of the Phillies for the second wild card.

The Phillies fell to .500 at 72-72 and have lost six of seven games.

Bryce Harper had an RBI double in the fifth, continuing continued his torrid pace, and scored in the inning to make it 4-3. He entered with an MLB-best 1.032 OPS, which would have made the star outfielder a more serious MVP candidate had the Phillies truly been in a pennant race. Harper may see his chances wane with each September loss.

This Phillies loss was like so many others, a trend so predictable that only 16,170 fans were announced for a so-called important game. The Phillies were humming along 1-0 on a leadoff homer by Odubel Herrera and four perfect innings — with seven strikeouts — from righty Kyle Gibson (10-7)).

Poof, it was gone.

Wilson Contreras led off the fifth with a single, Wisdom hit his 26th homer of the season and Rivas followed with the first of his big-league career. It was 3-1 on 12 pitches.

Rafael Ortega added an RBI double for a 4-1 lead. He added an RBI double in the seventh to make it 5-3 and scored on Ian Happ’s double.

Wisdom hit the latest crushing homer against the Phillies facing two strikes. Colorado’s Garrett Hampson hit two 0-2 pitches for homers in Sunday’s 5-4 win.

“There’s too many 0-2 pitches...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Wisdom-Rivas-homer-as-Cubs-beat-fading-Phillies-16459895.php