After beating the Brewers 12-0 on Monday, the Phillies were back in action last night in Milwaukee. This team is frustrating to say the least. After a 16 hit, six home run performance on Monday, the Phillies were left scoreless last night while only mustering five hits. The Phillies are now 2.5 games back of the NL East Leading Atlanta Braves and 2 games back for the second and final Wild Card spot in the National League with 24 games left to play.

Aaron Nola was on the mound and his September struggles continued. He pitched five innings, allowing six hits, three earned runs, and zero walks while striking out six. It wasn’t the worst outing we have seen from Nola, but he got beat up in the third inning. Whatever Nola had going in the third, he simply couldn’t retire batters and let up five of his six hits during that frame. All five hits in the third inning came with 2-strikes. The defense, of course, didn’t help Nola get out of the inning either.

Freddy Galvis could have made a play on a ball that ended up being an infield hit and ultimately that led to three runs. Any way you look at it, the headline will always be Aaron Nola, who has a 5.38 career ERA in 13 September starts, although there was plenty of blame to go around, especially when talking about the Phillies offense giving Nola zero run support.

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The game was 3-0 entering the sixth inning and the Phillies went with Ramon Rosso in relief. Rosso was terrible and allowed three runs, all of which came after a wild pitch, two-out strike out that extended the inning. Rosso then gave up two singles and two walks following what should have been the end of the inning. At that point, the game was now 6-0. The Phillies then went with Cam Bedrosian, who let up two hits, and two earned runs, then Enyel De Los Santos who always lets up two hits and two earned runs.

Just like that, the Phillies lost the game 10-0. There’s honestly not much else to say about the game besides that. JT Realmuto was hitless in the lead off spot with two strikeouts. Segura had one hit, Harper had one hit, Cutch had zero hits, Vierling had one, Galvis zero, Torreyes one, Marchan zero. The game was a complete dud.

At the end of the day, you are certainly not going to just sweep baseball teams, especially when it’s the NL Central leading Milwaukee Brewers and you’re the Philadelphia Phillies. If they can win tonight with Kyle Gibson on the mound, the trip to the mid-west will be deemed successful, so that’s really all you can ask for.

Let’s just get back to Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies are about to play 14 of their next 17 games at home. The only time they have to leave Philadelphia is for a quick three game series against the Mets September 17-19th. At home, they will have four games against the Rockies and three games against the Cubs, then the Mets on the road, before returning home yet again to face the Orioles and Pirates before the series everyone has circled on their calendars against the Atlanta Braves on the road at the end of the month.

Win tonight and get back to CBP. That’s all that matters. From there, we’ll do what we always do and take it game by game until we are statistically eliminated from playoff contention or maybe, just maybe, punch our tickets to Red October for the first time in nearly a decade.

Ring It. Or Don’t. Whatever.

Mandatory Credit: AP Photo // Morry Gash