Offense over, Phillies lose third straight for first time since Memorial Day

Offense over, Phillies lose third straight for first time since Memorial Day originally appeared in NBC Sports Philadelphia

PITTSBURGH — The Phillies couldn’t protect their lead on Friday night, couldn’t hit on Saturday night and opened the second half the same way they closed the first: losing a series.

The Phils lost to the Pirates 4-1 and lost three consecutive games for the first time since May 26-28 at Colorado and San Francisco.

They scored seven runs in the first five innings of Friday’s loss, but were scoreless in 12 consecutive games from that point until Bryce Harper’s solo home run in the ninth inning on Saturday.

The Phillies got just three hits in seven innings from Pirates starter Luis L. Ortiz, a double by Nick Castellanos in the second, a single by Johan Rojas in the fifth and a leadoff error by JT Realmuto in the seventh. Ortiz was stingy, keeping the Phillies off balance with a four-pitch mix (96 mph four-seam fastball, cutter, slider, sinker) that he used almost equally.

The Phillies are 62-36 as they try to avoid a sweep on Sunday behind rookie Tyler Phillips.

“He missed barrels. We hit a ton of flies on pitches that guys felt like they were hitting well,” said Realmuto, who returned to the team after missing 32 games with a meniscus injury. “He was throwing that cutter that was a little deceptive, it looked like it was going to break and we all missed it, got it right. He just did a good job of keeping us off balance with that.”

There just weren’t many scoring chances on Saturday night. The Phils had runners on second and third with two outs in the top of the second, but the inning ended with a Brandon Marsh hit to shallow left. Realmuto reached base to start the seventh but was quickly erased when Bryson Stott grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.

Stott has really struggled the last two months, hitting .200/.261/.259 in 188 games since May 21st. Edmundo Sosa started the first game out of the All-Star break at second base against a lefty and it will be interesting to see if he returns on Sunday against Marco Gonzales.

Coach Rob Thomson attributed some of this to Stott falling into modes where he is either overly aggressive or overly passive. The Phillies are looking for a better balance in that regard from him.

“I think he’s pushing it a little bit,” Thomson said after the game. “A lot of fly balls to left field. He’s got to get to the top of the baseball. He’s going to get out of it. He can hit.”

Cristopher Sanchez started for the Phillies and started five sharp innings. He had only put four men on base in five scoreless innings when Andrew McCutchen greeted him with a 431-foot bomb into the deepest part of PNC Park in left center to open the bottom of the sixth.

The next hitter, Bryan Reynolds, was singled and was retired in a 6-4-3 double play. Sanchez almost made it out of the inning, but Nick Gonzales singled and Oneil Cruz almost hit to right field, doubling to score a second run and chase down Sanchez.

“It seemed like his slider was a little inconsistent today, so we didn’t use it as much as we wanted to,” Realmuto said of Sanchez. “He threw the ball well, attacked the zone, but I felt like the slider wasn’t there today, so we weren’t able to do some of the things we wanted to do.”

Cruz struck out Matt Strahm two innings later to score two more, an important insurance as the Phillies had Trea Turner, Harper and Alec Bohm in what otherwise would have been a two-run game.

McCutchen’s home run was just the third allowed by Sanchez in 109 innings this season. He and Reynolds have been pests for the Phillies this weekend with the number of pitches they force and the way they finish their plate appearances.

“You have to attack them and make them put the ball in play because they have really good discipline and will destroy shots,” Thomson said.

Sanchez is 7-5 with a 2.97 ERA in 19 starts. Thomson pulled him on Saturday to 90 pitches, a similar threshold to what the team had in mind for Aaron Nola on Friday. The Phils will be cautious in the second half not just with Ranger Suarez and Zack Wheeler – scheduled to return on Monday and Tuesday – but with their entire rotation.