The Dodgers didn't have to be great Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Park. They just had to wait for the Phillies to beat themselves. Philadelphia obliged.
Max Muncy hit a go-ahead two-run homer off Aaron Nola in the sixth inning that moved him past Ron Cey into fifth on the Dodgers' all-time home run list. Tommy Edman went 3 for 3 and blew the game open with a bases-clearing triple in the eighth. Those are real moments, well documented, and nobody would blame you for building a recap around them.
That's not how I saw it, though. This game turned on two Philadelphia mistakes, not two Dodgers highlights.
The first came in the fifth inning, when the Phillies had a runner erased at third base while already in scoring position. Interim manager Don Mattingly didn't dodge it afterward. "Obviously, we got to execute," he said. "We make the out at third when you're already in scoring position, it's not something you want to see." One inning later, Muncy connected off Nola for the go-ahead shot, and Mattingly's own words made clear how much that earlier out stung in hindsight.
Then came the eighth. The Phillies' bullpen gave up four runs in that inning, the same frame where Edman's triple did its damage, and that kind of collapse turns a competitive road game into a laugher. Even the hometown beat writer put it plainly: mistakes on offense and a bullpen implosion doomed Philadelphia in this one. When the writers covering the team every day frame it that way, it's hard to argue the real story is Dodgers offense.
Still, I don't think the Dodgers deserve to be waved off just because Philadelphia opened the door. Somebody has to walk through it, and if you're looking for the Dodgers player who actually put them in position to capitalize, look at the bottom of the order. Dalton Rushing, hitting ninth, had been stuck in an 0-for-19 skid before Wednesday. He broke out with a third-inning homer and added a two-run double in the fifth, giving Los Angeles life before Muncy and Edman ever got involved. Freddie Freeman chipped in two doubles and a single, but for my money it's Rushing's night that made the late-inning fireworks possible.
Give Philadelphia their due moments. Alec Bohm opened the scoring with a two-run homer in the first, part of a season-long habit of him starting games hot. Bryan De La Cruz, back up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley for his first big-league look of the season, tied the game with a fifth-inning homer, a nice story buried in a bad night. Neither changes the verdict.
Zoom out and the Dodgers won the season series against Philadelphia for the first time since 2023, finishing 4-2 against them. That's a snapshot of where these two teams stood after this game, not a permanent state of the rivalry.
For Philadelphia, this is the same story that's followed them since Rob Thomson was fired in late April after a rough start dropped them well below .500: talented roster, expensive payroll, and self-inflicted wounds that keep showing up at the worst moments. A baserunning error and a bullpen collapse in the same game isn't bad luck, it's a pattern, and until Mattingly's club cleans it up, nights like this will keep happening whether the opponent is the Dodgers or anybody else.
