PHILADELPHIA – A whole lot of stellar pitching and just enough hitting gave the Philadelphia Phillies a good start on their quest to dethrone the Atlanta Braves in the National League East.
Alec Bohm had a tiebreaking single in the eighth inning, Zach Eflin gave the team another strong start on the mound and the Phillies won 2-1 on Sunday, completing a three-game sweep of the three-time reigning division champions.
Philadelphia’s pitching staff was the story of the season-opening series as the starting trio of Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Eflin surrendered only three runs, 11 hits and one walk while recording 24 strikeouts in 20 2/3 innings against an Atlanta lineup that led the majors in 2020 with 556 hits.
The Philadelphia bullpen, which posted a 7.06 ERA in 2020, didn’t yield a run in 7 1/3 innings in the series.
“Everyone did their job,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. “The starters came in and did their job. The bullpen did their job. To limit this team to the amount of runs that we did is not easy to do.”