Phillies go cold from the plate, lose 8-1 to the Minnesota Twins

The Philadelphia Phillies finally cooled down yesterday as the Minnesota Twins bounced back from a 13-2 beatdown on Friday night to win Game 2 of the weekend series at Citizens Bank Park 8-1.

Taijuan Walker was on the mound for the Phillies and from the start, didn’t look like he had his best stuff on the mound. Walker pitched just five innings, allowing three hits and three earned runs while walking six and striking out just two.

In the top of the first inning, Max Kepler got the Twins on the board first with a ground out to shortstop that scored Edouard Julien to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the fourth, Matt Wallner and Joey Gallo both hit solo home runs to extend the Twins’ lead to 3-0. Things never materialized for the Phillies from there and the Twins would add five more runs in the top of the seventh inning.

Twins 5-Run Seventh Inning

Carlos Correa solo home run.
Matt Wallner RBI single.
Joey Gallo 3-Run home run.

Yunior Marte, as he typically does whenever he takes the mound for the Phillies, coughed up another run on three hits in 1.2 innings of work before Jeff Hoffman struck out two to end the misery.

The Good 🥵

Nick Castellanos: 2-4
Trea Turner: 3-3, BB, R

The Bad 🥶

Kyle Schwarber: 0-5, 2 K
Alec Bohm: 0-4
Bryce Harper: 1-4, 2 K
Bryon Stott: 0-4
JT Realmuto:: 1-4, 3 K

Phillies Lineup I absolutely hate

Listen, whenever you have Jake Cave and Rodolfo Castro playing at the same time and batting next to each other at the bottom of the order, it’s never a good sign for the Phillies.

Typically, the bottom of the order has been productive and at times, we’ve seen Johan Rojas, Brandon Marsh, Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, and lately, Trea Turner and JT Realmuto get on base in those spots.

Last night, that just wasn’t happening and really, it hasn’t happened all season whenever players like Cave, Castro, Ellis, or whoever else the Phillies think can provide production step up to the plate.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Thomson and the Phillies are sticking with guys like Cave and more recently Castro. They are who we thought they were.

I would much rather DFA both of them and see players like Scott Kingery and Simon Muzziotti get the call ups from Triple A Lehigh Valley.

Muzziotti is slashing .315/.377/.800 with four home runs in Triple A Lehigh Valley and definitely deserves a look over Jake Cave as an outfield option off the bench for the Phillies. As for Kingery, he continues to put together a solid season in Triple A and would serve as the Phillies primary utility man.

That makes sense, right? Maybe I’m just upset that we got shelled last night. Whatever.

Phillies Hunt for Red October

With the Phillies loss last night, they now hold a 3.5 game lead in the top NL Wild Card spot, as the San Francisco Giants have lost 4 straight games.