Bryce Harper’s blast lifts the rollicking Phillies to the World Series

PHILADELPHIA - Into the cold and drizzle of a deep autumn Philadelphia evening there suddenly came a warm, heavenly glow that passed through Citizens Bank Stadium and its 45,485 ecstatic witnesses. Flying through that mist, barely airborne long enough to get wet, was a rocket-launched baseball bound for the bleachers in left-center field. On the earth below, Bryce Harper stood briefly to admire it, then ducked his head and began the most satisfying 360-foot jog of his life.

It was a two-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, and it sent the Philadelphia Phillies to a 4-3 victory over the San Diego Padres and a berth in the World Series, this franchise’s first since 2009. The Houston Astros or the New York Yankees await.

The blast was Harper’s fifth of this postseason. At this point, the NLCS MVP is as close of an approximation to 1928 Ruth or 1978 Reggie as baseball has seen in recent Octobers. He is hitting .419 with a 1.351 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. He is the center of the Phillies’ universe with the gravity of a thousand suns.

When lefty Ranger Suárez retired Padres catcher Austin Nola on a flyball to right to end the top of the ninth, the Phillies threw their gloves in the air and converged at the center of the mound for a scrum for the ages.

The Phillies held a slim lead for much of the game, constructed upon Rhys Hoskins’s two-run homer in the third and six-plus outstanding innings from ace Zack Wheeler. But carrying that lead home would prove a difficult task.

Much of the game was played in a light rain and a steady wind, cloaking the downtown skyline in the distance in a spooky blanket of haze. Beyond straightaway center, between the Stars and Stripes and a giant LED Liberty Bell that lights up after Phillies homers and wins, there were a pair of red flags flapping in the blustery wind - representing the only World Series titles in franchise history, from 1980 and 2008.

But the rain picked up and the conditions deteriorated in the top of the seventh, when the Padres scored a pair of runs to seize a 3-2 lead, the second of them scoring on the third wild pitch of the inning by Phillies reliever Seranthony Domínguez - equaling the number of wild pitches he threw in the entire regular season, spanning 51 innings.

The tying run, charged to Wheeler, scored on an RBI double by Padres designated hitter Josh Bell, who laced a double to right off Domínguez. Pinch runner José Azocar took third and then home on the second and third of Domínguez’s wild pitches. Suddenly, the Padres led by a run.

Major League Baseball rolled the dice by even attempting to play Sunday, with the weather forecast calling for light rain and a narrow window in which to cram a game. Because the postseason schedule was condensed - fallout from the owners’ lockout, which delayed the start of the season - the traditional travel day between Games 5 and 6 of the NLCS was wiped out. Had the Padres won Sunday, the teams would have reconvened in San Diego on Monday night.

In a sense, Harper’s homer off Robert Suarez took MLB off the hook for what was sure to be a much-scrutinized decision to play through the stiffer rain in the seventh inning.

This spring was miserable for the Phillies, who went two months without seeing the sunny side of .500 and got their manager fired in early June. The summer started with a roar and ended with a fizzle as a team that backed into the NL playoffs as the sixth seed in a bracket that only this year expanded beyond five provided little evidence that it could survive the gantlet that awaited in the postseason.

But autumn? Autumn has been incredible for the Phillies, and it will stretch on a bit longer than anyone here could have imagined just a few weeks ago.