Phillies Offense Goes Silent in 4-1 Loss to Nationals After Rain Delay

The Phillies’ offensive parade was rained on by more than just the rain delay; they were held to just five hits by Nationals pitching en route to a 4-1 loss that felt like a bigger deficit than the scoreboard dictated.

Coming into the game, there was a little bit of shuffling in the pitching rotation, and it was announced that this would be a bullpen game with Tim Mayza getting the opener assignment in this game, taking on Foster Griffin in a very important National League East showdown. About 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start, the game was delayed by rain, and that delay lasted about 90 minutes.

Even with starting the game late, with how the Phillies hit the ball in the previous series, there was an expectation that they were going to continue to hit the ball well in this game, but that didn’t happen early. The Nationals struck first in the first inning off Mayza when Dylan Crews singled, driving home James Wood, giving the Nats a 1-0 lead. In the second inning, Luis Garcia Jr. hit a home run off Alan Rangel, who relieved Mayza.

In the seventh inning, Brandon Marsh got a breaking ball from Griffin and hit a line drive home run, making the game 2-1. In the bottom of the seventh, Curtis Mead took a Seth Johnson slider and stretched the lead to 4-1, which was the final score in this one. This loss drops the Phils to 10-10 against the NL East, which is an area that they need to improve on going forward, especially as more inter-division games lie ahead.

Phillies’ Offense Stalls in DC

The expectation was that the Phillies offense would continue punishing the ball in Washington, and perhaps this would be a higher scoring match, but the Nationals held them quiet all night with the way that Griggin mixed locations and speeds. While this was a part of the reason the Phils were not getting good swings, the main reason was that the Phils did not take disciplined swings. While the pitching of Griffin was a huge part of it, they were swinging at too many first pitches and not making Griffin work too much.

The Phils had a chance in the fifth when they had Derek Hill on third with less than two outs, and the Phillies just couldn’t capitalize on it. This was an area that shone in the offensive explosion at Citizens Bank Park. In the seventh inning, after a one-pitch out by Edmundo Sosa, Marsh came up taking the pitch, even though it was a strike; it put Griffin into a mode where he felt comfortable, and he threw a breaking ball, which was a pretty good pitch, but Marsh went down after it and hit a home run. This was a game that was a bit of a trap game for the Phils, and the offense looked completely out of sync from the beginning. This culminated in the Phillies striking out 12 times in the game.

Phillies Bullpen Gamble Held Their End of the Bargain

There was a big gamble in the game with Mayza starting, handing the ball to Rangel in the second, but it paid off for the Phils. Mayza did give up a run in his one inning of work, and Rangel did surrender a home run, but with the way that the Phillies have been hitting the ball, two runs isn’t something that is insurmountable. After Rangel settled in, he pitched very well, only giving up that one run and five hits, while striking out four over five innings.

Johnson came in and was having trouble controlling the corners of the strike zone with his fastball, and the only pitch he seemed to have any confidence in was the slider. After Wood got a hit with a fastball that was in almost center cut, Johnson came in to Mead with the one pitch he had confidence in, and caught way too much plate, and it ended up in the seats. Chase Shugart came in for the eighth, got in some trouble, but danced out of it. It certainly wasn’t on the pitching in this game; they handled their end, but the offense just came up short.

Griffin Ties Up Phillies Into Pretzels

The overly aggressive swings of the Phillies hitters in this game made the job of Griffin way too easy. In this day and age of velocity being king, Griffin is a bit of a throwback to a crafty lefty starter who never threw a pitch harder than 92 MPH, but has incredible control and was hitting his spots well. What set him apart in this game was that he was changing speeds so well using his big breaking curveball dipping as low as 75 MPH with an unpredictable break that had two different trajectories.

It did feel like the rain delay didn’t help the Phils in this game, which they would never use as an excuse, and nor should they. But when facing a change of pace starter that can vary his speed, has multiple break paths on the same pitch, and uses a solid pitching tunnel all game to exploit the Phils uber-aggressive tendencies, the outcome was never in question. Body language on the Phils was showing their frustration. They will look to put this game behind them and hopefully get some continuity back when Jesus Luzardo takes on Zack Littell in Game 2 of the series.

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