PHILADELPHIA — The authenticated baseball sat on a shelf inside Alec Bohm‘s locker after he etched his name into a footnote in the Phillies’ history books.
For the sixth time in his career, Bohm was hit by a pitch with a bases loaded, surpassing Phillies icon Chase Utley for the franchise record. Utley was hit with a staggering 173 pitches during his time in Philadelphia, wearing five of them to score a run. Bohm has now collected six bases-loaded hit-by-pitches — not including his key one in Game 1 of the 2022 National League Wild Card Series — in only 31 total HBPs
“We were joking about it,” Bohm said. “Weird record, but it’s cool.”
Bohm went 1-for-4 with a double, four RBIs and two runs scored in an 11-4 win on Sunday night at Citizens Bank Park as Philadelphia’s offense came alive in the finale of a three-game series against the Yankees and a nine-game homestand out of the All-Star break. The team did not play the cleanest baseball, and it struggled to score runs for much of the stretch. But the Phillies (57-49) ended it on a higher note.
After the Phillies jumped out to a 2-0 lead, New York intentionally walked Brandon Marsh to load the bases for Bohm with two outs in the bottom of the third inning. The right-handed hitter stepped to the plate and laced a three-run double to center field on the ninth pitch from right-hander Will Warren. He then scored on a single from Bryson Stott, who also hit a home run in the second.
“It’s happened to me a lot in my career,” Bohm said of the intentional walk ahead of him, “but that time it kind of pissed me off.”
Bohm, now batting .221 with 13 home runs and a .650 OPS, said the move didn’t make him mad at the opposition, but he doesn’t like the implication that he’d be an easier out. He was motivated to cash in, and he put together an impressive at-bat to give the Phillies a big cushion.
They continued to rack up runs, and Bohm had the bases loaded again up 7-3 in the sixth. Left-hander Ryan Yarbrough beaned him with an 0-1 cutter to drive in a run and give Bohm sole possession of the record. He spun around in the batter’s box following the impact, one-handed his bat toward the dugout and ran to first. Bohm scored again on a three-run double by Stott.
“It’s like one of those weird baseball things,” Bohm said. “I don’t crowd the plate. I’m not looking to get hit. So I don’t really know why. I guess I just hit with the bases loaded a lot.”
Bohm, a 29-year-old in his seventh big-league season, has 93 career plate appearances with the bases loaded. He has a .333 batting average, but his OPS is only .767 because he has just four bases-loaded doubles with no home runs or triples. He also has 12 sacrifice flies with the bases loaded to go along with six walks and, of course, six hit-by-pitches.
Perhaps it’s hard to classify it as a skill since Bohm is not attempting to drive in runs via the hit-by-pitch, but he has certainly shown a propensity to do so. Whatever the reason, it’s led to a handful of Phillies runs and a new record for the third baseman.
“I’m not going up there with the bases loaded, looking to lean into a pitch or anything like that,” Bohm said. “It just happened.”
