Watch: Alek Thomas ties Game 4 with home run into pool

With Lourdes Gurriel on second base in the eighth inning, Thomas pinch-hit for Emmanuel Rivera and launched a home run to right field to tie Game 4, 5-5. The 23-year-old Thomas didn’t start Game 3 or 4, but came through with the biggest hit of his young career at the biggest possible moment.

It’s the second game in a row that the Arizona Diamondbacks have gotten to 35-year-old Philadelphia Phillies closer Craig Kimbrel. He gave up two walks and two hits in the ninth in Game 3, including Ketel Matte’s walk-off single. Friday night, it was three hits and three runs.
Philadelphia’s bullpen strategy backfired. Kimbrel pitched the eighth because of the string of right-handed hitters awaiting him, with the Phillies saving lefty-killer Jose Alvarado for the ninth.

But Arizona pinch-hit a left-hander in Thomas, then left Kimbrel in to face Marte, who singled, and lefty Corbin Carroll, whom he hit with a pitch. Alvarado finally came in to face right-handed Gabriel Moreno, who drove in the go-ahead run with a single.

On a night when Arizona eschewed a conventional starter for a bullpen game, it was the Phillies bullpen that got burned.