Diamondbacks beat Aaron Nola, Phillies to push NLCS to Game 7 

PHILADELPHIA — The detail that best told the story of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series was the energy — not on the field, but in the stands, the thousands who fill Citizens Bank Park having gained a reputation over the past couple of Octobers as creating probably the best atmosphere in baseball. 

For a while Monday night, in the early stages of the Diamondbacks’ 5-1 win over the Phillies, that noise remained relevant. 

The ovations began at 4:25 p.m., the better part of an hour before game time, when Aaron Nola, making potentially his final start with the Phillies, emerged from the dugout for his warmup. When Nola struck out Corbin Carroll, star outfielder, looking at a sinker for the first out of the game, the crowd popped. When Kyle Schwarber, leadoff-hitting slugger extraordinaire, walked to get the Phillies going in the bottom of the first, the rest felt obvious. 

But then the inevitable suddenly wasn’t. D-backs righthander Merrill Kelly wiggled out of a sketchy opening inning and allowed a lone run across five frames in one of the biggest games of his life. Arizona reached Nola, who lasted 4 1/3 innings, for four runs and six hits, including back-to-back homers in a tone-shifting, crowd-quieting second inning. 

By the end, Arizona had tied the NLCS and forced Game 7 — the first in the 141-year history of the Philadelphia franchise —  which will be 8 p.m. Tuesday night. The winner will advance to the World Series. The loser will begin their offseason. The probable pitchers: Philadelphia lefthander Ranger Suarez versus Arizona rookie righthander Brandon Pfaadt, both of whom tossed gems last week in Phoenix. 

“They got on top of us the first two games here and this place got awfully loud,” said Paul Sewald, the Diamondbacks’ closer and a former Met, recalling the start of the series last week. “We needed to quiet these guys down. It’s the first time they’ve sat, I think, for a playoff game.” 

Added Arizona’s Ketel Marte, who went 2-for-5 with a triple, a steal and two RBIs: “Of course, we want it bad. We want the whole thing.” 

Nola faltered in the second, when the Diamondbacks scored thrice in a bang-bang-bang sequence, silencing — shocking — the 45,473 fans in attendance. 

Tommy Pham, a trade-deadline acquisition from the Mets and freshly returned from a Game 5 benching, launched a solo home run to leftfield. Three pitches later, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. crushed another, also to left. Alek Thomas walked and scored easily on Evan Longoria’s double. 

In a span of about four minutes, nine pitches and zero outs, the Diamondbacks built the biggest lead any team had held over the Phillies all postseason — a mere three runs. 

“It was a little strange, because first inning he came out and really executed everything,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. 

For Kelly, that was plenty. 

Whenever the Phillies — and their fans — threatened to get back into it, Kelly and the Diamondbacks smothered them. He stranded two baserunners in the first and another pair in the second, limiting the damage to Brandon Marsh’s RBI single. J.T. Realmuto, who struck out to end the third and strand an additional runner, was the first of Kelly’s seven consecutive batters retired to end his outing. 

“[Bryce] Harper and Schwarber are both super locked in right now. They're not missing too many mistakes, so I'm not too mad about putting them on base right now,” Kelly said. “If the worst thing they get to me all day is a walk, I went in tonight being OK with that and just trusting that in between those guys that I had the confidence to get the other guys out.” 

As the D-backs tacked on to their lead, the Phillies never really came close to clinching. In the seventh inning, Schwarber got thrown out by catcher Garbiel Moreno when he tried to advance to second on a ball in the dirt. In the eighth, Harper’s drive to left-center died at the warning track. In the ninth, the Phillies went down in order against Sewald. The crowd booed following the final out. 

The nervous energy that had taken over the ballpark briefly flipped to venting in the top of the eighth. Troubled closer Craig Kimbrel — who blew Games 3 and 4, the reason the Phillies aren’t already headed to the World Series — entered for a low-leverage, get-your-feet-back-under-you opportunity. As he jogged in to his usual music-and-flickering-lights sideshow, fans booed. He worked around a two-out walk. 

Nola’s final moment on the field, meanwhile, yielded one last ovation. Despite his poor start and his drooped head as he walked back to the dugout, the crowd offered an obligatory, half-hearted salute to the longest-tenured Phillie, a homegrown front-of-the-rotation arm who served as a once-every-five-games highlight during the dregs of the organization’s rebuild. 

Nola, 30, is due to become a free agent for the first time after this season. His return to Philly is far from a lock — apparently much like the Phillies’ return trip to the World Series. 

“I’m just glad we’re at home and playing in front of our home crowd,” Harper said. “Only one game matters right now, and that’s tomorrow.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.