Phillies 4, Braves 3: Harper, Schwarber, and Bohm Force Game 3

Harper sat in right field. Then he tied the game.

September 30, 2026 - Atlanta - Bryce Harper was alone in right field in the seventh. He took his cap off and crouched after a fly ball tipped off his glove and the Atlanta Braves took a 3-1 lead in Game 2 of the National League Wild Card Series. Guns N' Roses played. Truist Park had six outs left to send the Philadelphia Phillies home.

Partly cloudy. 83 degrees. Wind 4 mph left to right. First pitch 2:16 p.m. Attendance 37,150. The game lasted 3 hours, 3 minutes. Philadelphia won it 4-3 in 10 innings. The series is tied 1-1.

"Obviously a world of emotion there," Harper said, per MLB.com. "I'll tell you what. I was thinking about Krew, my son, what I would say to him in that situation."

One run each in the first. Then Mahle went quiet.

Trea Turner scored on Harper's single in the first. 1-0 Philadelphia. Ronald Acuña Jr. scored on Matt Olson's single in the bottom half. 1-1. That was the last run either club scored for a long time.

Tyler Mahle threw seven innings: six hits, one earned run, one walk, six strikeouts, 95 pitches. He did not get a decision. He also did not give Philadelphia a second look until the eighth. Cristopher Sánchez threw 6 2/3: six hits, three earned, five walks, six strikeouts, 116 pitches. He issued intentional walks to Acuña and Ozzie Albies. He lasted until the inning that Harper will remember first.

The seventh that asked Harper a question

Sean Murphy walked to start the seventh. Ha-Seong Kim bunted toward the mound. Alec Bohm tried to get the lead runner at second and did not, the MLB recap said. Two batters later Harper misjudged Drake Baldwin's fly ball to right. It tipped over the top of his glove. Murphy scored. Baldwin had a double. Olson lifted a sacrifice fly. Kim scored. 3-1 Atlanta.

Sánchez found Harper in the dugout afterward. "I told him that he was bound to have a great moment," Sánchez said via team interpreter Diego D'Aniello, per MLB.com. J.T. Realmuto kept it simpler. "I just tapped him on the butt and said, 'You've got this,'" Realmuto said.

Alex McFarlane recorded the last out of the seventh with two inherited runners. That was the only job he had. Andrew Painter then threw three scoreless innings in his first postseason appearance: three hits, one walk, three strikeouts, 37 pitches. Realmuto called it a career-altering performance, per MLB.com.

Two sliders. Two homers. Then Bohm to right.

Kyle Schwarber led off the eighth against Dylan Lee. Lee had not allowed a homer to a left-hander in 92 at-bats this season, the MLB recap said. Schwarber hit a 3-2 slider a Statcast-projected 447 feet. Acuña did not turn around. 3-2.

Harper greeted him at the plate. "Hey, man, just try to find a way on," Schwarber told him, per MLB.com. Harper smashed a 1-1 slider to right. 3-3. "I wasn't not trying to hit a homer, I can tell you that," Harper said. "For me, everybody is going to make mistakes at some point, but it's how you come through in the next situation."

"It's in our DNA," Schwarber said. "We're just not going to quit."

Raisel Iglesias threw a scoreless ninth. Philadelphia put a hit on him and nothing behind it. The 10th belonged to Bohm. He hit an opposite-field homer off Didier Fuentes that rattled against the fence above the wall. 4-3. It was his first opposite-field homer since Opening Day, the MLB recap said. He became the fourth Phillie to hit a go-ahead homer in extra innings of a postseason game, joining George Vukovich, Lenny Dykstra, and Realmuto.

"I didn't know it was gone until I heard it hit," Bohm said, per MLB.com.

Painter finished the 10th. Michael Harris II and Mauricio Dubón reached. Atlanta had the tying run on. Painter still closed it. The win was his. The loss was Fuentes'.

A Game 3 that Atlanta did not want to play

Walt Weiss had seen nights like this. "I've seen some great ones that this has happened to," he said, per MLB.com. Atlanta still has Sale's Game 1 and a park that was loud in the seventh. It also has a series that is even.

Philadelphia still has to win one more on the road. Harper already said the next situation is the one that counts. Painter already threw three zeros when the Phillies needed someone who had never done this. That is enough to force Thursday.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Philadelphia at 8 team fantasy points. Mahle had 20 pitching FP without the decision. Painter had 10. Bohm had 8 hitting FP. Harper had 7. Schwarber's homer was the swing that started the eighth. Three strikeouts kept him off the top of the hitter board.

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 scoring applied to verified box stats. Information only; not financial advice.*