Jean Segura’s wild night helps Phillies take lead in NLCS

Segura’s Friday night was a roller coaster.

Game 3 of the National League Championship Series was set to be an important one. The Phillies and Padres split the first two games of the series in San Diego, before the series shifted to Philadelphia on Friday night. At stake was a crucial series lead and a chance to get within two games of the World Series.

In the end, the game’s most notable performance arguably belonged to the Phillies’ Jean Segura. While he two very notable, potentially harmful mistakes, he also came up massively on other occasions, helping the Phillies to a 4-2 win and a 2-1 lead in the series.

Segura’s first notable play of the day was a bad one and came in the fourth inning. With the Phillies leading 1-0, the Padres had one out and runners on first and third. Jake Cronenworth grounded a pitch to Phillies’ shortstop Bryson Stott, who easily fielded the ball and flipped it to Segura for what could’ve been an inning-ending double play. However, instead Segura couldn’t come up with the catch.

That allowed a run to score, tying the game. Then in the bottom half of the inning, Segura came to the plate with two outs and two runners on, and immediately atoned for his error, singling to score bother runners.

However, his roller coaster ride then continued when during the next at-bat, Segura was picked off to end the inning.

In the seventh inning, the Padres had a runner on with two outs and Ha-Seong Kim at the plate. The Padres’ shortstop hit a ground ball that looked destined to get through the infield, keeping the inning alive and brining San Diego’s big heart of the order to the plate. Instead, Segura made yet another notable play, coming up with a diving stop and a throw to get the runner at first to end the inning.

In total, those four plays had a 33.6% change in either direction on the Phillies’ win expectancy according to FanGraphs. In the end, the good outweighed the bad, and thanks to Segura, the Phillies now have a 2-1 lead and two more home games to come over the next two days.