Phillies manager Joe Girardi could not recall the last time he asked a closer to pitch two or more innings in a save situation, but he thought it might have been Mariano Rivera in Game 6 of the 2009 World Series.

Rivera pitched 1 2/3 innings with a four-run lead in Game 6 against the Phillies at Yankee Stadium. It was not a save situation, but the effort clinched New York’s 26th World Series championship.

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Having to remember as far back as Rivera, though, showed how rarely he asks his closers to pitch extended outings. Ranger Suárez’s seven-out save in Sunday afternoon’s 5-4 victory over the Red Sox at Fenway Park was a tremendous effort in a huge win. Huge, because the Phillies enter the All-Star break at .500 for the first time since June 19, which is no small feat considering they lost right-hander Aaron Nola before his scheduled start because of COVID-19 contact tracing. Huge, because the Phillies need to show the front office something as they approach the July 30 Trade Deadline.

The Phillies won back-to-back road series on a single road trip for the first time since July 2019. They won five games on a seven-game road trip for the first time since June 2014. They scored 60 runs, the most ever on a road trip of seven or fewer games.

“Extremely proud,” Girardi said. “I’ve said all along that this is a resilient group. We’ve probably had as many tough losses as any team in baseball. We have found a way. Two weeks ago, we were in kind of a nightmarish week. The last 10 days we’ve played extremely well.”

The Phillies ended the trip with Rhys Hoskins making a nice pick on a chopper moving to his right and flipping the ball to Suárez at first base for the final out.

It was Suárez’s second career save. He became the Phillies’ closer on July 3.

“Like Mariano, he’s very efficient,” Girardi said. “He locates extremely well. And I’m not comparing him to Mariano, but the similarities are they both locate extremely well and they don’t get into a lot of long innings.”

Suárez is the first Phillies pitcher to record seven or more outs and earn a save in a game decided by one run since Don Carman threw three scoreless innings in a 1-0 victory over the Cardinals on June 19, 1985.

“It’s very, very special,” Suárez said on the Phillies’ postgame show on NBC Sports Philadelphia. “It’s Fenway Park. There’s a lot of history at this park. So it’s a special moment.”

Suárez is 4-2 with a 0.77 ERA and two saves in 21 appearances in the first half. He is the Phillies’ path forward at closer, unless they make a move before July 30. His ability to pitch more than one inning gives Girardi flexibility, which is important as the rest of the bullpen searches for consistency.

Girardi said he originally planned for Suárez to pick up a two-inning save, but he asked him to get the final out of the seventh with the potential tying run on first base. He did.

“He’s done it before,” Girardi said about Suárez pitching multiple innings. “We felt like he could do it.”

Brandon Kintzler and left-hander Cristopher Sánchez pitched the first four innings in place of Nola. Kintzler allowed a home run in the second to stake Boston to a 1-0 lead. The Phillies scored twice in the third when J.T. Realmuto hit a two-out single to right against former Phillies right-hander Nick Pivetta. Ronald Torreyes scored easily, but Travis Jankowski only scored the go-ahead run because nobody backed up an errant throw to third.

Pivetta should have either backed up home or third, but he was yelling at himself for allowing the hit to Realmuto. Pivetta finished the inning and yelled some more as he bolted up the dugout into the Red Sox clubhouse. He returned to start the fourth. He struck out the first two batters, but Hoskins doubled and Brad Miller walked. Torreyes then crushed a three-run homer over the Green Monster to make it 5-1.

It set up Suárez’s heroics.

“He’s played a huge part in a lot of our wins, whether it’s been multiple innings or one inning,” Girardi said. “Sometimes you expect guys like [Bryce] Harper, [J.T] Realmuto and all those guys to do their job, and they’re doing their job. But there have been some unsung heroes with this team and Ranger is definitely one of them.”