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| Lead Photo · Bryce Harper, Nationals Park |
The Lead · Phillies The Phillies don’t lose ninth innings anymore. |
| FRIDAY · JUNE 26, 2026 | No. 17 |
No team in the history of Major League Baseball had ever done what the Phillies just did three straight nights in Washington. Then Bryce Harper made the last one personal. Per the Elias Sports Bureau, the Phillies are the first team in the history of the sport to hit a go-ahead home run in the ninth inning of three consecutive games. Thursday’s came from Harper — a two-run opposite-field shot off reliever Gus Varland that snapped a 5-5 tie and capped a 10-5 win, his 18th homer of the year, against the team that drafted him first overall in 2010 and let him walk seven years later. Brandon Marsh hit .529 across the four-game series, and the Phillies sit 45-36, now 53-20 against a Nationals club they’ve owned since 2021. Washington had three nights to learn the lesson and spent all three heckling. |
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★ The Stoop ★ The word on every team, neighbor to neighbor |
| Phillies UNKILLABLE Nats fans chanted at Harper all night, so he waited for the ninth, drove a two-run go-ahead homer the opposite way, and flashed his ring finger at the section that started it. Five straight seasons of getting buried by this guy and Washington still hasn’t learned to keep its mouth shut. Phillies report → |
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★ What to Watch | THIS WEEKEND The Phillies took three of four in D.C. and sit 45-36, chasing Atlanta in the Wild Card race with the All-Star break in sight. | | WEDNESDAY USMNT vs. Bosnia in the Round of 32 in Santa Clara — group play’s done, knockout soccer’s finally here. The path ahead. | | ALL WEEK Radio wars: The Fanatic’s Bill Colarulo went at WIP’s Spike Eskin for souring on a Bryce Harper cycle. Right idea, bad execution. | | ON THE SITE The win-probability charts from this Nationals series read like a seismograph — and the Phillies were on the right side of every tremor. |
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Trending Philly’s mice have evolved to beat rat poison — and we lead the nation in rodent sightings. A Rutgers study found most Philadelphia house mice now carry the mutation that lets them shrug off the bait, and 29% of households report sightings, the highest rate of any major city in the study. Seal the gaps now or meet the one Philly team that can’t be stopped. The full thing → |
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PHILADELPHIA → DALLAS Eagles at Cowboys · Thursday · Nov 26 · 4:25 PM |
| 7-1TLL's record on Phans road trips since 2022 |
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Thanksgiving in Arlington — the one game Eagles fans flood every year just to make Jerry Jones uncomfortable in his own building. Phans handles the flights, the hotel block, the tickets, and the tailgate. You get to the airport and make the flight. ● 31 SPOTS LEFT |
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| phansofphilly.com |
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Three nights, three ninth-inning daggers, one ring finger aimed at the cheap seats. Washington will spend the rest of the summer regretting the day they let him walk. See you tomorrow. ★ — TLL |
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