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PHILADELPHIA — The ninth inning was painful for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber were both injured Thursday night late in a 7-4 loss to the Miami Marlins, leaving their availability in question for the team with the best record in the majors.
Elected to his eighth All-Star Game hours earlier, Harper felt his left hamstring tighten as he was running to first base on the final play of the game.
The slugger clutched at the back of his leg and briefly fell to the ground after crossing the bag. Even though the Phillies challenged the call on his groundout, Harper didn’t wait for the result of the replay review and immediately limped down the tunnel.
“It hurts,” he said afterward. “We’re going to get an image tomorrow just to see what that looks like and see how I feel and go from there.”
Harper, who was the National League Player of the Month in May and is in the conversation for the same award in June, extended his hitting streak to 12 games with an RBI double in the first. He is batting .303 with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs.
Harper said he has never had a soft-tissue injury like this before, so he doesn’t know how concerned he should be.
“If I had something to go back on, I would let you know,” he said. “But I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
Schwarber felt tightness in his groin while making an awkward throw from the outfield in the top of the ninth. Usually the Phillies’ designated hitter, Schwarber was playing in the field for only the third time this season.
“I reached down to grab the ball barehanded and kind of planted for the throw and felt it grab,” Schwarber said. “I thought it was just a cramp at first and I finished the inning. But, as I was running in [between innings] I could still kind of feel it, so I talked to the trainer and he didn’t like where the spot was … so he wanted to get me out of there.”
Like Harper, Schwarber has had an excellent June and has been the Phillies’ table setter all season.
He also expects to get imaging done on Friday before a determination is made on his status, but he seemed more optimistic than Harper when talking about it postgame.
“Personally, I don’t think it’ll be super bad at all,” Schwarber said. “But we’ll see what happens.”
The Phillies have already played without shortstop Trea Turner for six weeks this season, and catcher J.T. Realmuto is currently on the injured list after having surgery to repair a torn meniscus. In addition, the team put starting pitchers Taijuan Walker (right index finger inflammation) and Spencer Turnbull (right lat strain) on the 15-day IL in recent days, so the injuries are mounting for Philadelphia.
“I feel like this team over the last couple years, we’ve had to go through a lot of different things where guys have had to step up and fill in spots and did a great job,” Schwarber said. “If that’s going to be the case here, that’s why we have this depth in Triple-A and we have a really good bench here. So, if there’s time to be missed I have all the faith in the world that these guys will keep doing their thing.”
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