Phillies Woes Continue in 7-2 Loss in Chicago, Drop 8th Straight
Apr 22, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson (7) completes a double play after forcing out Philadelphia Phillies catcher Rafael Marchan (13) during the fifth inning at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images
When a team goes through a cold stretch, especially one that consists of a long losing streak, there tends to be a stretch within it where nothing for the team goes right. Hitters can’t hit, pitchers can’t pitch, coaches can’t coach; it just seems like nothing can go right. Unfortunately for the Philadelphia Phillies, they are in the middle of that type of stretch right now.
The Phillies went into Wednesday night’s matchup against a Chicago Cubs team that is incredibly hot right now, winning 8 straight, 9 of their last 10, including now 5 against the Phillies with Wednesday night’s 7-2 victory. The Phillies have lost 8 straight games for the first time since they had a 9-game losing streak from September 20-28, 2018. Their losing streak is now the longest active losing streak in Major League Baseball, and the Phillies now stand at 8-16 on the season.
This game began with struggles for Philly. Opener Kyle Backhus gave up a run in the first inning, which was his lone inning of the game, putting the Phillies down 1-0 early. They would then take a 2-1 lead in the second. Rookie Felix Reyes began the inning with an infield single, Alec Bohm smacked an opposite-field single to right, Edmundo Sosa scored Reyes with an RBI double, Justin Crawford then scored Bohm on a bouncing groundout where the Cubs had no chance of getting Bohm, and barely got Crawford.
After the top half of the 2nd, it felt like the team finally had momentum. The offense scored twice, two hits coming from rookies, one hit being a good swing from a struggling Bohm; the Phillies finally hit with RISP. It felt good; the Phillies even had their first lead against the Cubs since the 2nd inning of the finale of the home series against Chicago back on April 15th. Then Taijuan Walker came out, gave up the lead, and the Phils keeled over and died, doing nothing the rest of the game, letting Chicago cruise to an easy 7-2 victory.
The offense has been the key contributor to the Phillies woes this season, and unfortunately, Wednesday night was no different. The offense once again could only score in 1 inning. It was nice to see 9 hits on the box score, including 2 from Bohm, but the team failed to gain momentum from it again. Those 9 hits for the most part weren’t very valuable either, as the team ended with only 4 RISP the entire game. The Cubs gained a 4-2 lead, and it just felt insurmountable due to the offensive issues.
The Phillies noticed how much Walker has struggled in the 1st inning this season, posting an ERA of 24.75. To solve that, Rob Thomson sent out the lefty Backhus to open the game. Backhus limited the damage but gave up a run in his lone inning of work.
Thomson then brought Walker in the 2nd inning, an inning where the Phillies had momentum and a 2-1 lead. Walker quickly coughed up the lead, gave the Cubs the lead in the 3rd, and at the end of the night had allowed the Cubs to score in 3 of his 4 innings of work. The Phillies attempted to set Walker up for success by having him skip the 1st inning, but instead, he gave up 8 hits and 5 runs, 4 earned, in 4 innings of work. His season ERA is 9.13.
A positive for the Phillies’ pitching staff today was the performance of Alan Rangel, who came in after Walker. Rangel made his season debut on Wednesday and struck out 5 Cubs through 3 innings, giving up only 1 run on a bloop single from Cubs centerfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong in his final inning of work in the 8th. No matter what, Walker’s spot in the rotation has been the clearest issue the rotation needs to fix, and the Phillies hopefully will get it fixed as Zack Wheeler is set to return this weekend against the Atlanta Braves.
The Phillies will look to break the losing streak and avoid a sweep at the hands of the Cubs on Thursday at 2:20 PM ET. Cristopher Sanchez will face off against former Miami Marlin Edward Cabrera.
Christopher DeMaio
Christopher is a Delaware County Native and a graduate of Devon Preparatory School, class of 2025. He is currently attending University and is in his second semester. Chris, growing up playing since the age of 4, fell in love with his hometown Phillies and continues that love with listening to sports radio, reading articles, writing for Philly Sports Reports’ Phillies team, and, of course, watching the Phils.
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