Phillies get swept by the Pirates as their losing streak swells to five and 11 of the past 14 as their franchise player heads to the IL
The Phillies came into this series in Pittsburgh desperate to right the ship and would head out on the right path to start Friday as they’d jump to a quick 1-0 lead in the first inning after a Trea Turner/Alec Bohm double steal and a Nick Castellanos ground out netted a run. The Phillies, for the first time this year, got to run with a legitimate bullpen game as they leaned on their shaky pen to get them nine innings worth of outs. Both teams would net four runs in the first four innings, scoring the same number of runs in each inning. One each in the first, zero in the second, one again in the third, and two each in the fourth. The Phillies would proceed to match zeros with the middling Pirates until the ninth inning. The Phillies would only get on base two times from the fifth inning on. Jordan Romano would take over in the bottom of the ninth and would allow three straight singles. He would then get Oneil Cruz to strike out, but Nick Gonzales would hit a near-homerun to left field that was caught on the warning track by Max Kepler and allowed the winning run to score.
On Saturday, it was announced that Bryce Harper was going on the injured list (IL) due to a right wrist issue. On the positive, in response to the injury, AAA sensation Otto Kemp got called up and was starting at third base for the Phillies on Saturday. Momentum for the Phillies seemed to be changing as Kyle Schwarber would crush his 20th homerun of the year in the first to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead. Well, that would be the only run they scored on the day and one of only four times the Phillies would reach base as they would shockingly not record a single walk. Ranger Suárez was fantastic on Saturday as he went seven innings, struck out five, and allowed two runs. Two runs were too much for the Phillies to overcome, however, as journeyman lefty Andrew Heaney would flatten them, and they would have no answer for the Pirates’ bullpen as they would lose 2-1.
On Sunday, Paul Skenes would avenge his loss from a week ago as the Cy Young favorite would torch an already fumbling Phillies offense. He would go 7.2 innings while striking out seven and walking one. The only run the Phillies managed was on a throwing error that allowed Brandon Marsh to score. Cristopher Sánchez would be brilliant as he would pitch into the eighth inning, and would strike out nine, and only allow one run before the start of the eighth inning. He would start the eighth with a walk to Oneil Cruz and was promptly replaced with Orion Kerkering. Cruz would immediately steal second base. With a runner in scoring position, Kerkering would make his pitch and jam Andrew McCutchen to the extent of breaking his bat. Unfortunately, the ball found an open spot in shallow right just out of the grasp of Bryson Stott, and it would fall, and Cruz would score. The Phillies would once again not have an answer and would fall in a sweep to the Pirates, 2-1. If you’re curious, Otto Kemp had six plate appearances over Saturday/Sunday in which he walked once, struck out once, and was caught stealing.
This is an excusable failure of a series. The Philadelphia baseball team has now lost five straight and is 3-11 over their past 14 games. The Phillies’ pitching staff allowed eight total runs the entire weekend, a weekend that included a bullpen game from this anemic bullpen, and the Phillies could not find a way to score more than six runs over three games against a team that sports nearly a 4.00 ERA as a team. The pitching has had some hiccups during this run. We have seen some starters have uncharacteristically bad games, and we know the bullpen is not good enough. The pitching staff is doing enough, though, that they should be winning more games than they are at the moment. It is the offense that is crushing this team. Over their last 14 games, this Phillies team has failed to score 3 runs or more eight times. They have completely lost any sense of discipline that the group carried through the first seven weeks or so of the season, and seemingly are just the same team they have been for four years now. This was highlighted this weekend when the Pirates and their third-worst K/9 in baseball struck the Phillies out 25 times while the Phillies could only manage 6 walks over the entire weekend. This team has repeatedly proven to be who they are. A team with a solid pitching staff, whose offense is not good enough to get the job done. This is not a small sample size, it is years, hundreds of games of evidence that change needs to come. This team’s uncanny ability to somehow have the entire offense go cold at the same time over and over again for weeks at a time while never really getting more than two players hot at one time is mind-numbingly infuriating. This group needs to make some sort of substantial change, and it is unclear at this point what that can and/or will be. Trading an everyday player, or maybe firing some members of the coaching staff? Bringing up some more young guys? Whatever it is, something needs to happen and soon. They are now 4.5 games out of first place to the New York Mets and find themselves barely hanging onto the third playoff spot with a one-game lead over the St Louis Cardinals. This free-falling team will get to come home and face the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs for a three-game series on Monday.