Phillies get swept out of Citizens Bank Park by Milwaukee in the midst of a 4 game losing streak as everything comes up bad and a concerning trend continues
The Phillies would enter Friday night on a relatively hot streak, but that certainly would not show. The Brewers would get two runs off of Taijaun Walker in the first inning and never relinquish the lead. The Phillies would finally get on the board in the fourth inning on a Kyle Schwarber RBI double that brought home Trea Turner. In the fifth though, Walker would get into some trouble, allowing the first two batters to reach base. He was replaced by Tanner Banks who would promptly allow a three run homerun to Christian Yelich to make it 5-1.
Taijaun Walker would end up going only four innings while striking out six and ultimately being responsible for four runs. The rest of the game was largely uneventful with the Brewers bullpen handling things. The Brewers would get one more run off of Carlos Hernández in the seventh and the Phillies would roll over quietly for the 6-2 defeat.
What is the opposite of bouncing back? Is it digging a ten foot hole and burying yourself under it? Because that is what Saturday was for the Phillies. Rhys Hoskins would lead the charge with two homeruns and six RBIs as the Brewers would score 12 runs through the first four innings of the game. All of those runs were horrifyingly allowed by Jesús Luzardo who would see his ERA go up by nearly 1.5 points as Rob Thomson for some unbelievable reason would leave Luzardo in the entire time. A horrifically bad decision from the manager that hopefully doesn’t hurt Luzardo and the locker room at large as he seemingly just let a pitcher who didn’t have it that day die a slow and painful death on the mound for no reason other than maybe to eat a few innings?
Alec Bohm would make it 12-1 with a homerun in the bottom of the fourth, his fifth of the year. In the sixth, José Ruiz would come in and allow five more runs to make it 17-1 Milwaukee. Ruiz would actually be DFA’d Sunday morning as the charade of pretending he was a big league pitcher and somehow, Jeff Hoffman replacement, appears to be over. The Phillies would scrape together five runs in the ninth, but the only truly electrifying moment the rest of the game was the two shutout innings pitched by Weston Wilson in the first 2025 edition of Phillies Position Player Pitching. The Phillies lost 17-7.
As the calendar turned to June, the Phillies could not turn the page on their stumbling. They did get a run in each of the first two innings to make it 2-0, but that would be it on the day. They would lean on Ranger Sáurez to carry them and he did his best, only allowing one run in six innings while weirdly only striking out two. Ranger would start the seventh and promptly allowed a double before being relieved for Orion Kerkering.
After getting an out, Kerkering was able to get William Contreras to role over on a grounder to short for the final out of the inning, but it was not as Trea Turner booted it and the runner came in to score, tying it at 2-2. Turner has largely not been able to play shortstop since he got to Philadelphia and his defense continues to be a problem for the Phillies. A swift two run double would see the Phillies down 4-2. Jordan Romano would squeak in one more in the ninth and the Phillies would quietly fall 5-2 to complete the Brewers Sweep.
Well, you don’t lose four straight without playing some bad baseball and the Phillies have done that. Bullpen continues to be this team’s achilles heel as they continue to be unable to hold leads and keep games close, and even the rotation decided to give them some problems this week. The offense has gone silent again, as a great pitching staff in the Brewers left the Phillies struggling all weekend.
This series cost the Phillies the lead in the NL East as they are now 1.5 game behind the Mets, but the first overall wildcard. While the Phillies are 36-23 on the season, they are alarmingly 12-18 this season versus teams with winning records which is never a good sign. It is still only early June though and it was just one bad series. This team is more than capable of rebounding. This was only the second sweep the Phillies have had this year. Both were against playoff teams with good pitching staffs… but still. They will get another road trip starting today as they head to Toronto to face the Blue Jays for a three game series.