The Phillies played bad baseball two nights in a row against the best team in the National League
The Phillies had a chance to split the season series with the Dodgers on Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Park and lost 9-5 in a game that came down to the same problems that cost them Tuesday.
Bad base running was a disaster and the fundamentals fell apart in when they mattered most, as Aaron Nola yet again gave up home runs at the worst possible time. The Dodgers took the series two games to one and the Phillies dropped to 56-47 with the Yankees coming to town this weekend.
Phillies 5th Inning Had Everything and Produced Nothing
Bryan De La Cruz, who was called up from Triple-A specifically because he was crushing left-handed pitching, homered to center off Dodgers lefty Eric Lauer to tie the game at 3-3. Stott doubled on the very next pitch, which meant that in the span of two pitches the Phillies had tied the game and put the go-ahead run on second with the ballpark rocking and the momentum swinging hard in their direction.
Then Marchan squared to bunt and popped it up in foul territory where Rushing caught it for an easy out. Rafael Marchan is not a Major League Baseball player, yet the Phillies organization won’t DFA this dude. It’s nearly August and he’s still getting backup catcher duties. There has to be someone else. Please God.
Two batters later Turner worked a 13-pitch at-bat before grounding to third, where Stott inexplicably broke for the bag on a ball hit directly to Muncy with the play right in front of him. Muncy tagged him out to end the inning and the energy drained out of the building in about four seconds.
That’s a homer, a double, and a 13-pitch at-bat completely wasted because the Phillies couldn’t execute a bunt and ran into a tag at third for the second consecutive night. Mattingly said Muncy’s positioning might have factored into Stott’s decision, but the result is what it is.
- Bad baseball two nights in a row against the best team in the National League.
- Bad baseball two nights in a row against the best team in the National League.
- Bad baseball two nights in a row against the best team in the National League.
- Bad baseball two nights in a row against the best team in the National League.
No Surprise: Aaron Nola Coughing Up Home Runs
Nola was fine through four innings with one run allowed on a solo shot from Dalton Rushing in the third. The fifth got messy when two singles put runners on the corners and Rushing doubled home a pair to make it 3-2 Dodgers, though Nola bore down and limited the damage with an inning-ending double play that kept the Phillies within striking distance.
Then he came back out for the sixth at 76 pitches with the heart of the Dodgers’ order turning over for a third time. Freeman doubled to lead off the inning, and Muncy, a night after taking Wheeler deep for the game-winner, crushed a two-run homer to left-center that put Los Angeles up 5-3 and ended the competitive portion of the evening.
That was Nola’s ninth start this season allowing multiple home runs, which leads the majors. He entered Wednesday coming off his best stretch of the year with five solid outings in his last six, and then the long ball found him again in the sixth inning of a tied game. It’s been the same story every time Nola tries to work deeper into a start, and he pointed afterward to a few pitches that didn’t finish where he wanted them.
Bohm Keeps Producing and That Matters… I Guess
Bohm homered on a low-and-in changeup for the second straight game providing early run support, and his turnaround since the May 9 reset day continues to be one of the quieter positive stories of the season.
Alec Bohm – Ring It
Since May 9 he’s hitting .260/.314/.464 with a .778 OPS across 63 games and has climbed to 52 RBI. The fix was shortening his stride and pulling the ball with more authority, and the numbers back it up because his hard-hit pull rate jumped from 33.3 percent to 41.1 percent while his OPS on 95-plus mph batted balls went from .459 to 1.389 over that span.
With Turner hitting .324 over his last 27 games and Bohm producing from the cleanup spot, the need for a right-handed bat at the deadline feels a lot less urgent than it did a month ago.
De La Cruz’s Homer Was a Nice Moment
De La Cruz became the third Phillies rookie this season to have his first career hit be a home run at Citizens Bank Park, joining Felix Reyes and Gabriel Rincones Jr. That’s only the fifth time in franchise history a team has had three rookies accomplish it in the same season.
The kid was promoted to hit lefties and homered off one in his first real opportunity, which should have been the story of the night before the popped-up bunt and the Stott baserunning mistake buried it.
Yankees This Weekend
The Phillies are off Thursday before the Yankees come to Citizens Bank Park for three games. New York is without Aaron Judge but sits 3.5 games up for the top AL Wild Card spot while the Phillies hold a 2.5-game cushion in the NL Wild Card race. The rotation matchups bring Will Warren on Friday, Cam Schlittler on Saturday, and Ryan Weathers on Sunday.
Mattingly confirmed the Phillies will not skip the fifth starter spot, with Lehigh Valley’s Brian Keller the likely candidate to start Saturday. That’s another reminder that the rotation depth behind Sanchez, Wheeler, and Luzardo still needs to be addressed before the August 3 deadline, which is now 11 days away.
The Dodgers series was a wake-up call more than anything else. The Phillies proved on Monday that they can hang with Los Angeles when the offense produces, and then proved over the next two nights that they can’t beat the Dodgers when the fundamentals collapse in the moments that decide games. Both of those things are true and the second one is what’s going to matter in October if it doesn’t get fixed.
Against a club like the Dodgers the little things are the separator, and the Phillies have been on the wrong side of that separator all season long.
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