Phillies 7, Rays 3: Wheeler, Harper, and a Last-Day Ticket

Four in a row lost, then Game 162 had to count

September 27, 2026 - Philadelphia - The clubhouse played Gloria Gaynor after the last out. That is not a bit. The Philadelphia Phillies had lost four straight while Arizona won four straight, and no team since postseason play began in 1903 had blown a lead that large this late, the MLB recap said. They still beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3 at Citizens Bank Park and punched the ticket.

Overcast. 65 degrees. Wind 19 mph in from right. First pitch 2:30 p.m. Attendance 42,146. The game lasted 2 hours, 48 minutes. Philadelphia finished 88-74. Tampa Bay finished 98-64 and had nothing left to play for except spoiling the party.

"It's so hard to get here," Trea Turner said, per MLB.com. "I think this is the first time I've ever had to play like 162. First time ever, 162 has counted for, you know, a big deal. So I think it's kind of a rare situation, and I'm glad we got the job done."

Wheeler for six. Harper and Sosa in the fifth.

Zack Wheeler (the win, 14-5) threw six innings: five hits, one earned, no walks, five strikeouts. The ERA sits at 3.00. Nick Martinez (the loss, 15-6) lasted 2 2/3: seven hits, four earned, one walk, one strikeout. Philadelphia had the lead before the second inning was over.

Bryson Stott doubled Kyle Schwarber home in the first. 1-0. Edmundo Sosa scored on J.T. Realmuto's double in the second. Schwarber doubled Realmuto and Turner home. 4-0. That is the version of this lineup that spent the summer looking like a threat. It showed up on the day it had to.

Jonny DeLuca homered to left-center in the fifth, his 10th. 4-1. Bryce Harper answered with his 29th, a line drive to right. 5-1. Brandon Marsh lifted a sacrifice fly, Stott scoring. 6-1. Sosa homered to right, his 9th. 7-1.

DeLuca went deep again in the seventh, his 11th, to right-center. Victor Mesa Jr. singled Jorge Mateo home. 7-3. Alex McFarlane had let the seventh get noisy. Jhoan Duran threw a clean ninth, two strikeouts, no hits. Jesús Luzardo had already thrown a perfect eighth.

Stott went 3-for-3 with two doubles, a walk, a stolen base, and an RBI. Schwarber went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI. Sosa went 2-for-4 with a double, a homer, and two runs. Turner went 2-for-5. Harper went 1-for-5 with the homer. DeLuca went 2-for-4 with two homers. Liam Hicks doubled twice. The Rays had eight hits and never led.

Champagne, a reset, and Atlanta next

Philadelphia started 9-19. Rob Thomson lost the job on April 28. Don Mattingly took it. The club spent months with one of the better records in baseball, then spent September reminding everyone that a four-game lead is not a parade.

"Everything resets," Harper said, per MLB.com. "You get into October and everything resets obviously. Should we have clinched two weeks ago? Probably. Right? But we didn't. You know, we clinched today, and that's how the story's written right now."

The next story is Atlanta. "We know who we are," Harper said, per MLB.com. "We just gotta play like it. At the beginning and at the end, we didn't play like it so much. So we gotta turn it up. We gotta be ready for Atlanta."

Wheeler gave them six innings on a day the rotation had to look like itself. Stott's 3-for-3 was the table-setter. Harper and Sosa's homers in the fifth turned a 4-1 into a 7-1 and took the air out of a Rays club that had already clinched whatever it was going to clinch. The party was loud because the week had been ugly. That is still a playoff team.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Philadelphia at 14 team fantasy points, tied for third on Sunday. Wheeler had 18 pitching FP. Stott had 10 hitting FP. DeLuca had 12 hitting FP for Tampa Bay, third among bats on the slate in a loss.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: MLB.com schedule; MLB Gameday wrap; ESPN scoreboard; ESPN box score; AthX Engine daily scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*