Harrison Bader continues to stabilize the outfield as Phillies roll the Mets

Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Sep 10, 2025

Published in Baseball

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PHILADELPHIA — Harrison Bader has played for the Phillies for all of 41 days, and already, he has a catchphrase.

What a gift.

It’s a gift, Bader said, that the Twins traded him before the July 31 deadline — and to the Phillies, no less. After four months with a noncontending team that will be at home in October, he’s poised to return to the postseason for the sixth time in seven years.

Nice gift, right?

Bader says it so often that it has turned into an inside joke. After Kyle Schwarber hit his 50th homer of the season this week, manager Rob Thomson gave a toast in which he called the slugger “a gift.” Everyone laughed.

It helps, too, that the Phillies are on a rollicking roll. After riding six solid innings from Cristopher Sánchez, five RBIs from revived Max Kepler and three hits from Brandon Marsh to an 11-3 pounding of the New York Mets on Wednesday night, they have won three games in a row, six of seven and 10 of 13.

Oh, and since Bader got his trade-deadline gift, the Phillies are 25-13 and have gone from a half-game off the Mets’ pace in the National League East to 10 games ahead, the largest lead in any division in baseball.

Before the end of next week, the Phillies (86-60) likely will clinch their second consecutive NL East title. The magic number is down to seven, meaning any combination of wins or Mets losses totaling seven will do the trick.

It isn’t a coincidence that all of this is happening since the deadline. Dominant closer Jhoan Duran was the headline addition, stabilizing the bullpen along with in-season free-agent David Robertson.

But Bader’s presence has helped organize the outfield, with Marsh and Kepler settling into their roles as left-handed hitters who start on either side of Bader when the Phillies face a right-handed pitcher.

Marsh, who didn’t have a hit in April, has raised his season average by 25 points to .287 since the deadline; Kepler has hiked his OPS from .655 to .698. And Bader is on a 37 for 110 roll since the trade.

Bader stepped into the leadoff spot Tuesday night in place of injured Trea Turner. Thomson didn’t intend to keep him there Wednesday against a righty. But Bader has provided so much energy that Thomson left him at the top of the order.

Sure enough, Bader set the tone again. He singled and scored in a two-run first inning against Mets starter Clay Holmes, then singled again in the second inning. He got hit by a pitch and came around to score in the Phillies’ three-run sixth.

Meanwhile, Marsh and Kepler broke things open in the fifth inning with an RBI double and single, respectively, to give Sánchez a 4-1 lead. Marsh singled home a run in the sixth before Kepler drove in two more to make it 7-1.

By then, Sánchez had muzzled the Mets, holding them to one run on four hits and a walk and lowering his ERA to 2.57 ERA, Cy Young-worthy in an NL universe that didn’t include Paul Skenes.

Bryce Harper and Kepler homered, just for good measure. And the Phillies won their fourth consecutive series since getting swept two weeks ago in New York.

Maybe that was a gift, too. Because even though the sky was never falling (the division lead over the Mets never dipped below four games), the Phillies have had their foot on the pedal ever since.

Consider this: In three games this week, they’ve outscored the Mets by a 21-6 margin, which sounds more like something the Eagles might do to the Giants.