They needed a good start from Kyle Gibson to quell the anger at the deal. They needed the offense to do something, anything, to get started.
They got both, and then some.
By shelling the Pirates this afternoon, the Phillies took a measure of revenge for a partial weekend of ineptitude. They didn’t hit for two days, didn’t pitch particularly well outside of Aaron Nola and generally needed to answer questions about whether or not they should even consider themselves in the division chase at all.
In the first inning, there was a small fear that it would be the same old Phillies after all.