The Philadelphia Phillies are hot, loose and loving life as one of the best teams in baseball

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Phillies are hot, that much is certain, with Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler powering and pitching the team to the best record in baseball and a recent home winning streak that nearly matched the franchise record.

Hot, yes. But sexy, too?

Well, no team has been quite as alluring to the packed crowds at Citizens Bank Park as the Phillies. Just ask them.

Brandon Marsh, the outfielder with the Rip Van Winkle whiskers, was mic’d up for an ESPN Sunday night game when he was relayed a fan question from social media by the broadcast booth: If you had to start a rock band, who would you take from the team and what’s the band name?

Marsh rattled off catcher Garrett Stubbs, slugger Kyle Schwarber and outfielder Cristian Pache as his fellow band members, then as he hustled off the field after making a catch, blurted out the name that has since launched a blossoming business of the catchphrase T-shirts.

“Stay Loose and Sexy, baby,” Marsh said.

Marsh said he has his own band shirt — which he has yet to reveal — and the Phillies have reveled this week in the attention the fictional name has stirred.

Stubbs — the backup catcher/clubhouse DJ/ Bud box hat fashionista — wants in as guitarist and backup singer. Of note, he does not play guitar or sing much more than on team karaoke nights.

“Pretty electric from Marshy,” Stubbs said.

Taking center stage as an MLB headline act, the Phillies are about as plugged in to playing good baseball as a team can be these days. Just take a look at their greatest hits — such as Harper’s three-run homer in a Monday win over San Francisco. For an encore? Harper smashed a grand slam the next night against Toronto.

“As a team, any given night, everyone’s going to do their job,” Harper said. “We’re not really worried about our numbers as individuals. We’re just going out there trying to win the games we need to. No matter who comes through at the right time or who comes through each night.”

Want consistent hitting? Third baseman Alec Bohm this week just wrapped up an 18-game hitting streak. Perfect pitching? Ranger Suárez — with a 6-0 record and 1.77 ERA — takes the mound Friday for the start of a three-game series in Miami.

“There won't be many people, probably, at the ballpark,” manager Rob Thomson said. “You've got to internally create your own energy. We have a good group of people that can do that. Stubbs, Marsh, they tend to bring that every day.”

Some of the super stats tell the story.

The Phillies are 26-12 and their .684 winning percentage was tops in baseball entering Thursday’s games.

They won 11 straight home games before Wednesday’s loss to Toronto, one shy of matching the Citizens Bank Park record. They have won 11 of 13 games overall and 26 of their last 36. Harper has hit three times this season with the bases loaded — and has two grand slams. They are 22-1 when leading after six innings and 23-0 when leading after the eighth.

Philadelphia's biggest accomplishment, though, just might be this: They are leading — yes, leading — the NL East by two games over the Atlanta Braves.

The Phillies ended each of the last two seasons among baseball's best. Led by a homer-happy, bat-spiking offense, the Phillies lost the 2022 World Series in six games to the Houston Astros. Last season, the Phillies took a 3-2 series lead into Game 6 of the NL Championship Series before losing the final two games at home to the Arizona Diamondbacks and bowed out.

What's not forgotten in Philly is the long climb it took for the Phillies to reach October.

They were 25-30 at the end of last May. The Phillies opened 2022 at 22-29 when they fired manager Joe Girardi and promoted Thomson. Slow starts and sizzling Junes — 18-8 last year; 19-8 in 2022 — had become the norm for the Phillies.

This year's team does have unfinished business in the postseason. The first World Series championship since 2008 remains the ultimate goal. But a great wire-to-wire regular season and even the division title that has eluded them is on the table this year.

Anchored by Wheeler and Suárez, the Phillies boast the best rotation in baseball. One hiccup is two-time All-Star shortstop Trea Turner will miss at least six weeks with a strained left hamstring. Turner had started all 30 games this season and was hitting .343 with two homers, 10 doubles, nine RBIs and 10 stolen bases. Without him, the Phillies are still 4-1.

“I think what happened the last two years at the end is really motivating for this group,” Thomson said. “It's not just Bryce that's competitive. I think the entire room is competitive. They feed off of each other that way. These guys, they come to play every day. They are tough. And they have fun at the same time. It's just a really good group, a special group.”

On the stat sheet, the Phillies are better than those ’22 and ’23 teams.

That won't matter much come October. But if Harper again goes on a late-season tear and Wheeler keeps shutting teams down, the Phillies are primed to make another World Series run.

Well, they can just as long as they remember to stay loose and sexy, baby.

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Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper celebrates after his three-run home run off San Francisco Giants pitcher Mason Black during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, right, reacts past Toronto Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk after hitting a grand slam during the fourth inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, center, celebrates with Kody Clemens and teammates after hitting a grand slam against Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Jose Berrios during the fourth inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper reacts after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Spencer Turnbull, from right, Garrett Stubbs and Kyle Schwarber celebrate after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, right, and Spencer Turnbull celebrate after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Members of the Philadelphia Phillies celebrate after winning a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants, Sunday, May 5, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Philadelphia Phillies' Bryson Stott, left, and Brandon Marsh, right, dump water and candy on Whit Merrifield after winning a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Philadelphia Phillies' Brandon Marsh, right, celebrates with J.T. Realmuto, left, after hitting a two-run home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, April 26, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Brandon Sloter)

Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, center, celebrates with Bryson Stott, left, and Brandon Marsh after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The helicopter crash in which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and other officials were killed is likely to reverberate across the Middle East, where Iran’s influence runs wide and deep.

That's because Iran has spent decades supporting armed groups and militants in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, allowing it to project power and potentially deter attacks from the United States or Israel, the sworn enemies of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Tensions have never been higher than they were last month, when Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an airstrike on an Iranian Consulate in Syria that killed two Iranian generals and five officers.

Israel, with the help of the United States, Britain, Jordan and others, intercepted nearly all the projectiles. In response, Israel apparently launched its own strike against an air defense radar system in the Iranian city of Isfahan, causing no casualties but sending an unmistakable message.

The sides have waged a shadow war of covert operations and cyberattacks for years, but the exchange of fire in April was their first direct military confrontation.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has drawn in other Iranian allies, with each attack and counterattack threatening to set off a wider war.

It's a combustible mix that could be ignited by unexpected events, such as Sunday's deadly crash.

Israel has long viewed Iran as its greatest threat because of Tehran's controversial nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and its support for armed groups sworn to Israel's destruction.

Iran views itself as the chief patron of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule, and top officials for years have called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Raisi, who was a hard-liner viewed as a protégé and possible successor of Khamenei, chastised Israel last month, saying “the Zionist Israeli regime has been committing oppression against the people of Palestine for 75 years.”

“First of all we have to expel the usurpers, secondly we should make them pay the cost for all the damages they have created, and thirdly, we have to bring to justice the oppressor and usurper," he said.

Israel is believed to have carried out numerous attacks over the years targeting senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists.

There is no evidence Israel was involved in Sunday's helicopter crash, and Israeli officials have not commented on the incident.

Arab countries on the Persian Gulf have also long viewed Iran with suspicion, a key factor in the decision of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel in 2020, and of Saudi Arabia to consider such a move.

Iran has provided financial and other support over the years to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the Gaza war, and the smaller but more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which took part in it. But there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in the attack.

Since the start of the war, Iran's leaders have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians. Their allies in the region have gone much further.

Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, Iran's most militarily advanced proxy, has waged a low-intensity conflict with Israel since the start of the Gaza war. The two sides have traded strikes on a near-daily basis along the Israel-Lebanon border, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee.

So far, however, the conflict has not boiled over into a full-blown war that would be disastrous for both countries.

Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq launched repeated attacks on U.S. bases in the opening months of the war but pulled back after U.S. retaliatory strikes for a drone attack that killed three American soldiers in January.

Yemen's Houthi rebels, another ally of Iran, have repeatedly targeted international shipping in what they portray as a blockade of Israel. Those strikes, which often target ships with no apparent links to Israel, have also drawn U.S.-led retaliation.

Iran's influence extends beyond the Middle East and its rivalry with Israel.

Israel and Western countries have long suspected Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a peaceful atomic program in what they see as a threat to non-proliferation everywhere.

Then-President Donald Trump's withdrawal from a landmark nuclear pact between Iran and world powers in 2018, and his imposition of crushing sanctions, led Iran to gradually abandon all the limits placed on its program by the deal.

These days, Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%. Surveillance cameras installed by the U.N. nuclear agency have been disrupted, and Iran has barred some of the agency's most experienced inspectors. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, but the United States and others believe it had an active nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East but has never acknowledged having such weapons.

Iran has also emerged as a key ally of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, and is widely accused of supplying exploding drones that have wreaked havoc on Ukraine's cities. Raisi himself denied the allegations last fall in an interview with The Associated Press, saying Iran had not supplied such weapons since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022.

Iranian officials have made contradictory comments about the drones, while U.S. and European officials say the sheer number being used in the war in Ukraine shows that the flow of such weapons has intensified since the war began.

In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)

An Iranian woman prays for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

FILE - People gather around a component from an intercepted ballistic missile that fell near the Dead Sea in Israel, Saturday, April 20, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Itamar Grinberg, File)

FILE - Iranian worshippers chant slogans during an anti-Israeli gathering after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)