Phillies lose second straight series, end miserable 2-4 homestand

The Phillies closed out a brutal homestand with a 3-1 loss to the Guardians on Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park.

They went 2-4 on the homestand, lost two straight series for the first time under Mattingly, and are 26-27 heading to California for six games against the Padres and Dodgers.

The first six series under Mattingly were all wins. The last two were both losses. Whatever momentum this team had coming out of the Pittsburgh sweep has evaporated over the last week.

The reason is simple. The offense is dead.

Shocker: Phillies Couldn’t Hit

A .172 team batting average across six games. Six runs scored in the four losses. The pitching has been outstanding. Sanchez threw eight shutout innings on Friday and lost 1-0. Wheeler threw six scoreless on Saturday and won 3-0. Painter went 6 1/3 on Sunday and gave up just two runs for the longest outing of his career.

The rotation held up its end across the entire homestand and the offense gave them absolutely nothing to work with.

You cannot waste pitching like this. When your starters are combining for a 1.06 ERA across 11 starts from Wheeler and Sanchez alone, the offense needs to produce more than six runs in four games. The lineup is letting elite pitching performances go to waste night after night and it’s costing the Phillies series they should be winning.

Trea Turner Is in a Bad Place

Trea Turner went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a walk on Sunday. His average has fallen to .225 with a .288 on-base percentage. The guy who won the NL batting title last year at .304 is hitting 80 points lower than that and his approach at the plate has looked lost for weeks.

He said after the game that the team needs to “get a few more hits offensively and produce a little more.” That’s an understatement from the leadoff hitter who has been one of the biggest problems in the lineup.

Turner’s cold stretch is killing the top of the order. When the leadoff man isn’t getting on base, the entire lineup suffers.

Schwarber, Harper, and the middle of the order don’t get as many at-bats with runners on. The offense loses its rhythm from the first inning. Turner figuring it out is one of the most important things that needs to happen for this team to sustain a run.

Garcia Is Who We Thought He Was

Adolis Garcia went 1-for-38 before doubling in the fourth inning Sunday. He’s hitting .203. I’m not sure you can even call this a slump because this might just be who Garcia is. The early-season hard-hit rate and the hot 15-game stretch gave everyone hope that the bounce-back year was real.

The last few weeks have brought him back to earth violently. When Mattingly was asked about alternatives for Garcia, he said he didn’t have “a true alternative, a guy who’d totally be an upgrade offensively.” That’s a manager admitting the roster doesn’t have a better option than a guy hitting .203. That’s a depth problem. Again.

Andrew Painter’s Development Is the Silver Lining

Painter threw 6 1/3 innings of two-run ball Sunday for the longest outing of his big-league career. Since getting shelled by the Athletics for eight runs in 3 2/3 innings on May 7th, he’s given up just five runs over 17 1/3 innings across his last three starts. All three have been with Realmuto behind the plate. The fastball location has been better. The command has tightened up. The walk issues have subsided.

Painter improving while Nola struggles gives the rotation a potential lifeline. If Painter keeps pitching like this and Nola figures some things out, the Phillies have five legitimate starters. If Painter regresses and Nola stays at a 6.04 ERA, the rotation is effectively three deep and that’s not enough over 162 games.

The 7-13 Record Against Left-Handed Starters Is a Crisis

The Phillies are 7-13 in games started by left-handed pitchers. Cleveland’s Parker Messick held them to five hits over 5 2/3 scoreless innings Sunday. The lefty problem that has haunted this team all season showed up again at the worst possible time on a homestand where the offense was already struggling.

This isn’t going away on its own. The right-handed hitters in the lineup have been consistently unable to produce against left-handed pitching and no amount of lineup shuffling is going to fix a fundamental inability to hit southpaws. The Phillies either need to find right-handed bats who can handle lefties or accept that they’re going to lose two-thirds of their games against left-handed starters for the rest of the season.

California Is a Massive Test

The Phillies flew to San Diego after Sunday’s game for three against the Padres starting Monday afternoon, followed by three against the Dodgers. Those two teams entered Sunday a combined 23 games over .500.

This is the toughest stretch of the schedule since Mattingly took over. The Marlins, Athletics, Rockies, and Pirates are behind them now. The Padres and Dodgers are the kind of opponents that expose every weakness a roster has.

If the offense keeps hitting .172 against quality pitching in San Diego and Los Angeles, the Phillies are going to come home from this road trip in a hole that’s difficult to climb out of.

The pitching will compete. Sanchez, Wheeler, and Painter have proven that over the last three weeks. The offense needs to wake up. Turner needs to start hitting. Garcia needs to find something. The lineup needs to give the starters more than one or two runs a night.

California will tell us a lot about what this team actually is. The homestand told us the pitching is elite and the offense is a problem. If both of those things are still true after six games on the West Coast, the Phillies have a serious issue heading into June.

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