Phillies Lose Finale To Astros In Minimal Offensive Outing From Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner (7) breaks his bat on the final out of a loss against the Houston Astros at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
Name a tougher opponent for the Phillies’ offense than a getaway-day game.
To say the Philadelphia Phillies’ September schedule is difficult would be an understatement, as the Fightin’s had six series against projected playoff teams heading into the month of the regular season.
Their third-of-the-month series was a three-game set against a familiar foe, the Houston Astros. Despite coming into the series just two games over. 500, the Astros surprisingly lead the American League West and are still in play for a bye in the playoffs.
While Houston is, in terms of a record, a good team, the Phillies are a far better team roster-wise. With two of their aces on the mound for this series, taking two out of three games seemed easy enough for Philadelphia. However, they forgot about one thing. Their inconsistent offense.
The Phillies’ offense in September has been nothing like it was in August, as this month, as a team, Philadelphia is batting .243 with a season-low .301 on-base percentage heading into Thursday’s contest. Before their 11-7 win over Houston in Game 2 of the series, the team scored four runs or fewer in half of their games.
So heading into the rubber match against the Astros, the Phillies sent Zack Wheeler to the mound, hoping to continue his recent streak of improved pitching after going a near month without recording a quality start.
Wheeler kicked off the game well in control of the Astros lineup, sending Jeremy Pena and Yordan Alvarez down and working around an Isaac Paredes single for a scoreless first inning.
Cristian Javier, the man infamous for being a part of the Astros’ combined no-hitter against the Phillies in the 2022 World Series, got the start on the mound for Houston. Javier began the game with a walk to Kyle Schwarber, but a ground-ball double play from Bryce Harper ended that inning.
The second inning wasn’t as kind to Wheeler as the first, as Christian Walker got aboard thanks to a one-out single, and two batters later, Taylor Trammell scored him in with an RBI double down the right-field line for the game’s first run.
Following the double from Trammell, Wheeler would retire the next seven Astros in order, while Javier one-uped him, retiring the nine batters in order. In the bottom of the fifth, still without a hit and having only one runner get on base, Luis Arraez ended Javier’s no-no with a single to left field.
Alec Bohm followed up the leadoff single with a double into the right-center field gap, putting two runners in scoring position for the Phillies with nobody out.
Bryson Stott was able to bring one run in to tie the game at one, grounding into a fielder’s choice with Bohm getting tagged out at third, but the Phillies were unable to add on in the fifth as Brandon Marsh grounded in a double play on the first pitch he saw following Stott’s at-bat to end the inning.
With a brand new ballgame, both starters managed to grind through the sixth inning, but in the seventh, Wheeler ran into trouble. Jose Altuve led the inning off with a bunt single, and after picking up back-to-back outs, Wheeler walked Cam Smith and Trammell to load the bases.
Sitting at 104 pitches, Phillies manager Don Mattingly elected to let Wheeler get out of the jam against pinch hitter Yanier Diaz. Wheeler managed to do just that, sending Diaz down on six pitches, picking up his ninth strikeout of the afternoon, and keeping the game tied.
The Phillies offense went lifeless through the seventh and eighth innings, but luckily the game remained tied heading into the ninth. Jhoan Duran came on to pitch the ninth, hoping to at worst send the game to extras.
However, after picking up a groundout to start the inning, Duran left a splitter over the middle on the first pitch to Cam Smith, who smoked it 421 feet to center for a go-ahead solo home run.
Trailing with three outs left, Houston went to their closer, Josh Hader, who already had a save earlier in this series. Hader made easy work of pinch hitter Edmundo Sosa, striking him out on three pitches, and got Schwarber and Trea Turner to ground out to end the game, defeating the Phillies 2-1.
With the loss, the Phillies moved back to four games behind the Braves for the top spot in the National League East. Philadelphia heads down to Atlanta this weekend for the final three games between the two rivals this season.
Matt Brown
Matt has been a Philadelphia sports fan all his life and spent four years at Penn State University majoring in Broadcast Journalism and minoring in Sports Studies. He previously covered Penn State’s field hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball teams while writing for a Penn State blog called Onward State. He has now covered the Phillies, Eagles, and Sixers for Philly Sports Reports since October 2024 and wants to pursue a career in Sports Journalism.
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