The Philadelphia Phillies entered this week with a lot of attention. The city of Philadelphia was angry after the Sixers collapsed in the NBA Playoffs. All attention turned to the Phillies, who were a few games below .500 in a crowded, underperforming National League East. First, they had two games against the Washington Nationals. Yes, the Nationals have been hot as of late, but the Phillies let two games slip away, losing game one 3-2 and game two 13-12.

After a day off on Thursday, the Phillies opened up a four game series against the NL East leading New York Mets. The lost game one of the doubleheader 2-1 and then won game two 2-1, despite yet another blown save from the bullpen. The Phillies are now 35-38, tied with the Atlanta Braves for third place in the NL East, five games behind the leading New York Mets. They have two games left in the Mets series, today will be against Jacob deGrom. Great.

In the doubleheader games yesterday, the Phillies got scoreless work from their starting pitchers. Aaron Nola started game one and tied a major league record with 10 consecutive strikeouts, while also driving in the Phillies only one of the game. Nola should have gotten the win.

Jose Alvarado entered the game in the bottom of the seventh inning and blew the save opportunity by committing a throwing error, followed by a game winning two-out hit from Francisco Lindor to give the Mets a win.

Nola had two of the Phillies’ three hits in game one, one of which scored Nick Maton. On the day where Joe Girardi named Jose Alvarado the new Phillies closer after Neris struggled in the same role, Alvarado let a crucial game slip away.

In game two, Bryce Harper hit a solo home run in the sixth inning to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead. This time, Archie Bradley entered the game to close for the Phillies in the seventh inning and allowed a hit and a walk. Brian McCann hit a sacrifice fly to centerfield and the Phillies blew another save opportunity.

Luckily for the Phillies, Odubel Herrera hit a ground ball to score Travis Jankowski in the top of the extra innings 8th, to give the Phillies a 2-1 advantage and the win. Matt Moore started the game for the Phillies and pitched well, throwing five scoreless innings, allowing three hits and a walk while striking out two.

The Phillies should have won both of those games. They also should have beaten the Nationals twice. Instead, they took only one of four games. They have blown five leads over the last three games. Instead of entering today one game over the .500 mark with Eflin against deGrom. Instead, they are three games below .500 with a very tough matchup today. Just terrible execution from the Phillies.

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