Game 136 - Harper, Hoskins, Kingery all Homer; Remembering Chace Numata

Phillies 7, Reds 1
Game 136 - Monday Afternoon, September 2nd in Cincinnati
Record - 71-65, 3rd place, 12 1/2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  Scott Kingery, Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins (twice) all homered for the Phillies in this 7-1 series opening win.

What It Means:  The win kept the Phillies at 2 1/2 games behind the Cubs for the second Wild Card.

What Happened:  Four of the Phillies' six hits were of the home run variety, accounting for all seven runs.  Drew Smyly and Jared Hughes combined for seven innings of one run ball with Smyly striking out eight.  Nick Vincent recorded the final three outs in his Phillies debut.

Featured Card:  I'm hoping these two have many, many multi-home run games together and that leads to many more combo baseball cards.  I believe this is Hoskins and Harper's fourth baseball card together as they've appeared on two Topps Now cards (one from the 2018 Home Run Derby and one from this season in July), a Throwback Thursday online exclusive card in the style of 1970 Topps, and this Combo card inserted into packs of Topps Heritage High Numbers.

2017 Choice Reading Fightin
Phils Theme Night #2

Transactions:  Nick Williams joined the team in Cincinnati, giving them 31 active players.  With the IronPigs season ending on Monday, more bench and bullpen reinforcements could be on the way.

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I also wanted to pay tribute to catcher Chace Numata who passed away on Monday after succumbing to injuries sustained in a skateboarding accident.  Numata, who was playing for the Tigers' Double-A team this season, spent his first eight professional seasons in the Phillies organization between 2010 and 2017.  He was one of the first players to ever sign a card for my son Doug back in 2013 at our first Lakewood BlueClaws game.  Based on the tributes pouring in over social media, Numata was a wonderful person and a tremendous teammate.  My sincere condolences go out to his family.  #ForNumi