Going head-to-head in Game 2 of the NL Wild Card Series, Tyler Mahle and Cristopher Sanchez limited their opponents to a single run each. Seven innings of postseason drama later, the score was tied 1-1 until what appeared to be a game-changing blunder by Bryce Harper in right field. His mistake helped the Atlanta Braves take a lead, but he quickly atoned in the next frame. After the Philadelphia Phillies leveled the series with a 4-3 win, an emotional Harper revealed what kept him going through the difficult moments.

“Tell you what, I was thinking about Krew, my son, and what I would say to him in that situation. I think it’s a learning situation, not for myself, but for everybody else as well, right? I think you try to flush it as quick as possible,” Harper told the reporters with a smidge of a smile and pride on his face, emphasizing how one can learn from every situation.

“I grew up playing a lot of big games… So I’ve been through a lot of situations to get me to this point. You make a play like that, and I’m hearing it out there, obviously. But how quickly can I turn the page?

And just get past that moment, knowing that I’m still coming up to the plate to hit and knowing that it’s the postseason. It doesn’t matter what you did in the at-bat before the inning before. It’s what you do in that moment.”

With one out and runners on first and second in the bottom of the seventh, Braves’ catcher Drake Baldwin pulled Sanchez’s sinker to right. It should have been a routine fly ball for Harper, until it wasn’t.

The veteran Philly ran farther than needed to make the catch and did not realize it until it was too late.

Harper tried to backtrack, but the ball touched the tip of his glove and dropped to the ground, rolling away towards the wall. The Atlanta Braves were awarded a double, as Sean Murphy scored, putting his team in the lead.

In the next at-bat, the Phillies intentionally walked Ozzie Albies before Matt Olson’s sacrifice fly helped extend the lead to 3-1. Then, Michael Dubon grounded out to end the inning.

At the top of the eighth, Kyle Schwarber retaliated for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Schwarber hit a leadoff homer to make it a one-run game. Then, it was Bryce Harper‘s moment to atone for his gaffe in the previous inning.

He launched a solo shot to right-center to tie the game at 3-3. Interim manager Don Mattingly only had good things to say.

“Schwarber and Harp, obviously, those are huge,” said Mattingly, per MLB Network.

“Schwarber fights off some pitches, and it’s closing in on not being able to see very well. But to catch him there, and then Bryce had a pretty good pitch, kind of down and in, and [he was] able to keep that fair as a big swing.”

With no automatic runners at second base, like in the regular season, Alec Bohm was at the plate with two outs in the tenth. After a rough season with a .249 BA, Bohm stepped up to deliver the game-winning solo home run for his team, cementing the score at 4-3.

While Harper’s homer tied the game, Bohm’s tenth-inning solo shot won it.

In what Mattingly described as Andrew Painter’s “coming of age” year, the rookie right-hander came out of the bullpen to close out the Braves in three scoreless innings.

Despite allowing two singles in the tenth, Painter stranded the runners and struck out Dominic Smith to end the game.

The Phillies have overpowered the Braves in the 2022 and 2023 NLDS, along with the 1993 NLCS. They will try to keep that tradition alive in the Wild Card Series when they meet again on Thursday.