Victims of Late-Inning Collapse, Phillies’ Struggles Reach Rock Bottom
John Froschauer/AP Photo
The last four weeks have been a period of incomprehensible baseball from the Philadelphia Phillies. As many have noted in recent days, a team that took the league by storm for the first three months of the season has found a way to become one of the worst teams in the sport. With the talent this team has, the Phillies will undoubtedly turn it around sooner or later, and after the first five innings on Saturday, it looked like that time had finally come for the struggling Phillies.
In the fourth inning of game two against the Seattle Mariners, Bryce Harper snapped his 0-24 streak by pounding a 104-mile-per-hour double in the left-center field gap. The heaviest of the weights holding this team back had seemingly been lifted. It did not knock in any runs or even start a rally, but it unearthed the confidence that Harper and the Phillies had lacked.
An inning later, Alec Bohm picked up this third RBI of the night with a two-run single. Brandon Marsh scorched a single to right field, plating the Phillies’ fourth and fifth runs of the evening. As Alec Bohm, the birthday boy, crossed home plate and headed toward the dugout, he clapped twice, and a smile formed on his face.
The Phillies had a five-run lead. Kolby Allard had pitched three scoreless innings. The bullpen needed to hold the Mariners’ offense for five more innings, and the Phillies would have an opportunity to win their first series since the tenth of July. Finally, things were looking up.
Then, suddenly, the Phils were right back down in the dumps.
With a four-run lead going into the sixth inning, Phillies’ manager Rob Thomson had no desire to take any chances. All-Star reliever Jeff Hoffman entered the game with the Mariners’ two, three, and four-hole hitters—Randy Arozarena, Cal Raleigh, and Justin Turner—due to bat.
Hoffman came into the game having only allowed five earned runs all season. He boasted a sub-one ERA. Thomson’s plan was bulletproof in theory, but in practice, it imploded. Arozarena hit a leadoff double, and a few batters later, Jorge Polanco knocked him in with a single to right field. A strikeout of Dylan Moore brought Hoffman within an out of limiting the damage, but after a walk loaded the bases, pinch-hitter Luke Raley crushed a hanging slider for a double off the wall, and the Mariners were within a run. Just one batter later, Josh Rojas tied the game with an RBI single that hit off the glove of a diving Bryce Harper.
Trying to score from second base on Rojas’ single, Raley was thrown out at the plate by Harper. It ended the inning and kept the game well within reach, but all of the smiles from the Phillies’ fifth-inning rally had faded.
Jeff Hoffman’s ERA inflated, and the Phillies’ confidence had deflated.
“The command isn’t there,” J.T. Realmuto told reporters after the game. “We’re not getting ahead of guys… We’re working behind, so our stuff does not play as well when we’re throwing it in the middle [of the strike zone].”
The Phillies’ bullpen was effective elsewise. Kolby Allard, Matt Strahm, Jose Alvarado, and Carlos Estevez threw 7.2 innings on one-run ball, striking out ten Mariner hitters. Estevez, who threw a scoreless ninth inning and was sent back out for the tenth, faced further adversity, as he was squeezed by home plate umpire Ryan Wills.
With two outs and the bases full in the tenth, Estevez had Mitch Haniger in a 1-2 count. J.T. Realmuto was ready for a fastball up and in at the hands, but Estevez dotted a 99-mile-per-hour fastball at the knees on the outside part of the plate. Realmuto reached for the well-placed strike and pulled the ball out of the zone. It was a tough pitch to catch, but it was a clear-cut strike. Wills did not even flinch, and three pitches later, the Mariners were victorious thanks to a walk-off walk.
So, yes—the Phillies were quite literally walked off. And frankly, that about sums up how the Phillies have played since returning from the all-star break. The offense has been scattered, the bullpen has been lackluster, and the starting pitching has lacked consistency. Their lead in the NL East is down to five games, and they are now losers of their last six games.
And even though their on-field confidence appears to be lost for the time being, the players know there is light at the end of the tunnel. Even Carlos Estevez, who has yet to witness a Phillies win since being acquired from the Angels, realizes this.
[We’re a] winning team [in] first place. Everyone wants to be on a team like that,” Estevez said. “They were like ‘we’re doing really bad right now, but we’ve got this.’ I’m like… ‘I know we got this because I’ve seen it.'”
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