Garrett Stubbs went 4-for-4 with three runs and an RBI to help the visiting Philadelphia Phillies pound the Kansas City Royals 11-3 in the rubber match of their three-game series on Sunday afternoon.
Kyle Schwarber and Alec Bohm each had two hits and three RBIs, Brandon Marsh had two hits and scored twice and Nick Castellanos hit a two-run homer for the Phillies, who went 3-3 on a six-game road trip.
Phillies left-hander Kolby Allard (2-0) was called up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley and allowed two runs and eight hits in five innings. He struck out five and didn’t walk a batter.
Bobby Witt Jr., Maikel Garcia and MJ Melendez homered for the Royals, who went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position. Kansas City dropped three games back of the first-place Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central after pulling within a game on Friday night.
Kansas City opens a four-game series at Cleveland on Monday.
Royals starter Seth Lugo (14-8) allowed six runs (five earned) and a season-high 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out three and walked one.
Lugo came into the game with the third-best ERA in the AL (3.02) and the most innings pitched (166 2/3).
Stubbs tripled into the right field corner to lead off the third and scored on a double by Schwarber for a 1-0 lead. Bohm came through with a two-out RBI single later in the inning to extend the lead to 2-0.
Witt blasted a 441-foot homer to straightaway center, his 26th long ball of the season, with one out in the third to make it 2-1.
Schwarber’s run-scoring groundout in the fourth extended the Philadelphia lead to 3-1, but Garcia drilled his seventh homer of the year on the first pitch of the bottom of the fifth to trim it to 3-2.
Stubbs delivered a one-out RBI double in the sixth to extend the lead to 4-2 and end Lugo’s day.
Schwarber grounded the first pitch from Kris Bubic into right field for a single, scoring Johan Rojas, and Stubbs followed Rojas home when Dairon Blanco booted the ball, stretching the lead to 6-2.
Melendez hit his 16th homer of 2024 leading off the home half of the sixth to cut it to 6-3.
For the second straight day, the Phillies blew the game open with five runs in the eighth.
Bryce Harper drove in Stubbs with a double to make it 7-3. Bohm’s two-run single made it 9-3, and Castellanos followed with a two-run homer — his 17th home run of the season — for an 11-3 lead.
–Field Level Media
