👋 Good morning! I am stoked, Steve!

Said! Said!

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⛳ Aaron Rai wins the PGA Championship at Aronimink: And he sealed it with an absolute bomb on the 17th hole.

In golf, I generally root for the better players to win the majors. Those are the tournaments that everyone gets judged on, and it’s really hard to be consistently great in that sport. Hence, I root for the guys who are more consistent.

But this tournament set up pretty well for the underdog, as the pins were in diabolically difficult spots (Course! Course! Course!). When a PGA Championship record 22 players were within four shots of the lead entering the final day of the tournament, you knew that anyone who got hot on Sunday could run away with this thing.

It was Rai, who fired the second-best round on the course on Sunday (five-under 65). Rai might not be a superstar but he’s a good, solid player. The two gloves thing is a little much, but the iron covers part is a really nice story of gratitude for the sacrifices of his hard-working father.

The CBS crew needs to get their local geography straight, though.

Jim Nantz calling it the Schuylkill Freeway? Frank Nobilo calling a clear shot of the Delaware River the Schuylkill River? Come on, fellas, tighten it up. I did like CBS’ drone shots of the Schuylkill, though. Nice weather weekend in the Delaware Valley.

That Rai putt on 17 was a 68-footer. It reminded me a lot of J.J. Spaun’s bomb across the state last year at Oakmont. Speaking of across the state…

⚾ The Phillies sweep the Pirates: I told you that I could see the headlines.

Let’s go deeper on the local baseball team in the next section.

It is the single-most powerful button in all of professional sports.

When the Phillies relieved Rob Thomson of his managerial duties on April 28th, they were ten games under .500. There was real reason to worry. Even if the Phils did eventually start to play better, which was not apparent when they were getting their brains beat in by the Cubs and Braves every single night, they had already dug themselves such a massive hole. Would they be able to dig their way out of that huge hole before it was too late?

Well, the Phils already have dug their way out. It took three weeks.

The Phillies are 14-4 under Don Mattingly, and just as importantly, 1-0 under MY GUY Dusty Wathan after Dusty pinch-hit for Donnie Baseball on Saturday. Way to go, Dusty! The Phils were the worst team in baseball at 9-19 over the first four weeks, followed by the best team in baseball at 15-4 over the last three weeks. Hard to believe, Harry.

In a way, I think the early-season panic has become even more justified after this hot streak. This team had way too much talent to be playing such bad baseball. The players clearly responded to seeing the manager, who they all genuinely liked, get fired because of their terrible play. There is still a lot of work to do, especially because the Phils have gained all of 2.5 games on Atlanta during this ridiculous hot stretch. The Braves never seem to lose.

That is OK, though. We still have a lot of baseball left to play, and those three wild-card spots still exist. Credit to the Phillies for getting off the mat. Season back on.

How often do we see quick turnarounds like this? Not often! Good stat from Todd Zolecki here.

(That was year before the Moneyball stuff happened. The A’s still had Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon. They also had Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, which I am not sure the movie mentions once.)

I figure we will go through this weekend game-by-game, because it’s fun to talk about a sweep. Different heroes stepped up in each win. Well, except for Bryce Harper. He was majorly involved all weekend.

🧹 Friday: Phillies 11, Pittsburgh 9 (10): The Win of the Season, clearly.

This was the second time that The Comeback Kids erased a 6-0 deficit in a week. Unlike against Colorado, the Phils finished the job this time.

Aaron Nola is a huge problem. A year after his ERA was just above six, it is now just below six. Nola just does not have the stuff to survive if he cannot locate his pitches. On Friday, he threw two middle-middle fastballs that got absolutely tattooed. One of the Pirates relievers caught Marcell Ozuna’s blast with a traffic cone in the bullpen. I dunno what was going on there, but it was a party in Pittsburgh.

This looked like a lost game for the Fightins. It would have been easy to pack it in. But they did not. Hence, The Win of the Season.

That starts with Kyle Schwarber, who went deep twice on Friday:

Schwarber is incredibly dialed in. Pulls the ball off a righty, goes the opposite way off a lefty, whatever you need. What a hitter. After that second homer, John Kruk was actually in awe of what he was seeing.

And why would he not be? At that point, that was Schwarber’s ninth homer in his last eight games. Ridiculous. Despite not going deep on Saturday or Sunday (slacker), Schwarber has 20 home runs on the season. He leads the rest of MLB by three.

Schwarber has been one of the ten-best hitters in the sport so far this season. But a major reason that the Phillies are back above .500 is that the guy behind him has also been one of the ten-best hitters in the sport so far this season.

Elite, you might even say.

Trailing by three entering the top of the ninth on Friday night, the Phillies faced old friend Gregory Soto. As we all know, Soto has Grade-A stuff but his command is incredibly erratic. And we have all been on the other side of the outing that Soto delivered on Friday, where he just does not know where the ball is going. Not a fun situation.

With the Phillies down 8-5 and the bases loaded, Schwarber was happy to work a four-pitch walk. Pass the baton. Harper golfed one out to right off Soto and missed a homer by a foot, but he was able to tie the game up.

The Phillies went on to win in extras. Great job by the bullpen — I see you, Chase Shugart — and great fight from the lineup. And speaking of Bryce, that was the only time he did not homer this weekend…

🧹 Phillies 6, Pittsburgh 0: The first three batters of the game scored on Saturday, on Bryce’s 457 feet moonshot. Three-quarters up the batter’s eye! I honestly thought that ball had a chance to hit the Roberto Clemente Bridge.

Those three runs were all that Cristopher Sánchez needed. Sanchy set a career high with 13 strikeouts, four of which came against that bum Ozuna. And he tossed a complete game shutout. No big deal.

Sanchy’s season has mirrored the Phillies’ in a way. Remember when he was giving up all of those hits? Not anymore.

Sanchy was not bad early on. He was a little unlucky, with bad BABIP numbers in part due to the Phillies playing bad defense. But he was not sharp, either. Well, now he’s sharp. Another good Zolecki stat…

🧹 Phillies 6, Pittsburgh 0 (again): This was a gravy game for the Phils, as far as I was concerned. They had already played so well, and they were going up against the best pitcher in baseball.

But they did not view it that way. Good for them.

I have nothing bad to say about Paul Skenes. He is an awesome pitcher. He had not walked a hitter in his last five starts. He had thrown eight shutout innings in his last two starts. It seems like he can paint the corners with preposterous stuff.

In fact, I fully supported John Kruk’s plan to get Skenes out of the game, once he hit Adolis García with a pitch: I mean, if you want to get Skenes out of the game, charge the mound, right? I know you didn’t mean this on purpose, but we gotta get your ass out of the game.

Instead, the Phillies got Skenes’ ass out of the game the old-fashioned way. They ran his pitch count up, scratched a few runs across in the fifth inning, and then chased him in the sixth. Bryce left the ballpark. Alec Bohm, who is sporting an OPS that is somehow 37 points higher than Bo Bichette’s, got a base hit and came around to score.

It was a nice offensive approach overall. Compare that to what the Phillies mustered against Chris Sale in the last game Thomson managed three weeks prior? Night and day.

Even with Schwarber and Harper catching fire, even with Sánchez dealing, even with the emotional jolt of Thomson’s dismissal, you could argue that the most important development for this Phillies team over the past three weeks is that Zack Wheeler is not only back on the mound, but also pitching like Zack Wheeler.

The first few starts, Wheels was mostly pulling the trick off with his brain. But this was the closest that Wheels looked to his old self, a smart pitcher that also has great stuff. He said after the game that he was feeling good with the warm weather, and he kept pumping fastballs. I counted that four of eight strikeouts came on elevated four-seamers out of the zone, inducing chases from Pittsburgh’s swing-happy lineup.

Wheels averaged 96.3 miles per hour on that four-seamer. My reaction was the Mark Cuban GIF.

As good as the Phillies pitching has been during this stretch of contention, this marked their first back-to-back shutouts since 2022. And credit to the Phils fans for nice showings in Boston and Pittsburgh this week, a nice bit of mouthwash after what happened in the basketball arena last weekend.

The news and notes of the day…

Aleksei Kolosov: The Flyers signed their No. 3 goaltender. One year, $850,000.

When Kolosov initially came over, he was interesting because he did not really want to come over at all. Kolosov wanted to stay in Belarus. Seems like he has adjusted well enough over here, but now the question is if he is actually any good. Kolosov only had an .895 save percentage in the AHL this past season.

Torts Being Torts: The good news for John Tortorella: After replacing Bruce Cassidy late in the season, Torts has the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Finals. That is due in large part to an incredibly weak Pacific Division. Vegas is probably gonna get smoked by Colorado, but still, an accomplishment.

The bad news for John Tortorella: He might have cost his team a second-round pick and himself $100,000 because he did not speak to the media after winning the second-round series against Anaheim.

A second-round pick and a $100k fine! It sounds like the Knights might get their pick back upon appeal, but it is also clear that the NHL is sick of that franchise flouting their media obligations. The league wants its players and coaches to talk after games. They want fans to be interested in their games!

Torts, answer seven questions after you win the series from the Big Bad Las Vegas Media, buddy! I promise, it won’t hurt you.

Additional Rest, Part One: The second-round sweepers of our beloved Philadelphia teams are both gonna have a serious rest advantage in the conference finals.

First, Carolina. The Hurricanes dispatched the Flyers last Saturday. Game 7 of Sabres-Habs is tonight. They will be, uh, in much better shape.

The Canes will have 11 days of rest between series, the most in the NHL since the 1919 Montreal Canadiens. The Habs’ next series that year got cancelled midway through because of the Spanish Flu. That is how long it has been.

Additional Rest, Part Two: The Knicks swept the Sixers eight days ago. Cleveland, their opponent in the Eastern Conference Finals, beat Detroit in a Game 7 last night. A little bit of a rest advantage for the Knickerbockers.

On a related note, Tobias Harris shot 0-6 from the field in Game 7.

Union 1, Columbus 1: I figured I would start noting the Union scores. But that is all this team is getting this year.

In the Friday mailbag, Ted was looking for advice on how to approach his children’s sports fandom in Connecticut with a spouse who is a Giants fan. Quite a dilemma! I had fun with the question, but I am also probably not the best person to ask. I do not have any kids and I live in Philadelphia.

Anyway, I got a great email from Lee, who lives in Massachusetts. She has some tips for Ted and anyone who comes across this issue…

Wearing the Hurts jersey to Patriots Spirit Day is very funny. Perfect, no notes.

Good sports night. The Phillies look to get to two games over .500 at CBP against Cincinnati (6:40 p.m., NBC Sports Philly). Andrew Painter against Nick Lodolo is the pitching matchup. Keep sticking to the offspeed stuff, Andy!

Hopefully the Phils get up a bunch of runs early, because there is good second screen viewing to be had tonight. Game 7 of Sabres-Habs and Game 1 of what very well might be the de facto NBA Finals, Thunder-Spurs.

Let’s make it a good one.