Jean Segura delivers a Phillies win with his bat and glove, but he wasn’t perfect

It was the best of Jean. It was the worst of Jean.

It was everything you’ve come to expect from Jean Segura.

Big hit. Bad error. Dumb baserunning. He had the biggest hit, the two best defensive plays, and he made the worst error, and delivered the foulest brain fart.

He had, in all, a helluva night.

Really, would you have it any other way? Would the Night of Jean Segura be complete without a little bit of all of it? Segura is the epitome of the 2022 Phillies. They’re like hound dogs: likable, and fun, but so, so dumb.

But, in the end, the good outweighed the bad with Jean Segura, as it almost always does. That was true was Friday night, in the pivotal Game 3 of the National League Championship Series. Pivotal? Sure.

Almost 70% of the teams who win Game 3 of a best-of-seven series tied at a game apiece proceed to win the series. The moment could hardly have been bigger.

Segura rose to the moment. Again. And again. And again.

His two-out, two-strike, two-run hit in the fourth inning broke a 1-1 tie and gave the Phillies the lead for good. They beat the Padres, 4-2, and lead the series, 2-1.

This is nothing new for Segura, even if playing in the playoffs is. He has eight walk-off hits in his career. He isn’t perfect, but he’s pretty damned clutch .

Segura provided the go-ahead, two-run single in the middle of the six-run ninth inning that spurred the Phillies to their 6-2 win in Game 1 of the wild-card series in St. Louis. That game, that inning, that hit — it imbued in the Phillies, the sixth and final playoff seed, a sense of destiny.

Baseball writes the best stories, and if the Phillies win it all, Segura will be a main character.

Because that wild-card win was Segura’s first playoff game. He had entered the postseason carrying an unwelcome distinction. At 1,328, he led all active players in games played without reaching the playoffs.

He made the first one count.

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He made the ninth one count, too — though he nearly rendered himself irrelevant. It’s what he does best.

Segura is the guy who dogged it to first base and caused the rundown that blew out Andrew McCutchen’s knee in 2019.

Friday, he was the guy who got picked off first base after he drove in the two go-ahead runs with that two-strike, two-out wounded quail into shallow center field over the outstretched glove of Jake Cronenworth.

Segura’s the guy who tried to hotdog a routine out into double play last season and got nothing — nothing, that is, besides a dressing down in the dugout by former manager Joe Girardi.

Friday, he was the guy who dropped a perfect, soft relay from shortstop on a double-play ball that would’ve ended the fourth inning and nullified a run crossing the plate. Instead, the run counted, and the Padres tied it at 1.

The crowd groaned. It booed. It waited.

Segura rewarded them a few minutes later with the big hit.

He’s thrilled them an inning before, diving, popping up, and nailing Trent Grisham to start the third inning. He thrilled them later, too, diving again, to his left, popping up, and firing to get Ha-Seong Kim and end the seventh.

Each time, Segura — a 5-foot-10, 220-pound, mini-Hulk — flexed and hollered and hooted. HIs teammates reveled with him. He missed two months with a broken finger — he did it with a bad bunt attempt — and he was missed. They love him in the clubhouse, if they don’t always love him in the stands.

Nevertheless, it was Segura on Friday who did the most to reward Ranger Suárez, who gave up two runs in five innings but should have given up none; Rhys Hoskins’ error cost him a run in the fifth.

It was a raggedy, raucous win; flawed, but, somehow, perfect.

Perfect for this team.

Perfect for Jean Segura.