Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Phillies faced a lefthanded starting pitcher and lost the game. On Sunday afternoon, the Phillies faced a solid lefty in the Guardians’ Parker Messick and their season-long struggles against southpaws continued. They mustered just six hits and one run on the day, and as a result, lost the game by a score of 3-1.
After getting gems from Cristopher Sanchez and Zack Wheeler in the first two games of the series, the Phillies were hoping for a solid performance
from rookie starter Andrew Painter on Sunday. And that’s what they got, with Painter going 6.1 innings, and allowing two runs.
He’s still not striking out as many batters as you’d hope, and he got some help from his defense with two double plays being turned as well as J.T Realmuto throwing out a would-be base stealer. Still, after his awful showing against the Athletics earlier this month, he’s been plenty respectable in the three starts since.
Painter walked just two batters, but unfortunately, both of them came around to score. In the fifth, after giving Daniel Schneemann a one-out walk, consecutive hits by David Fry and Steven Kwan broke the scoreless tie.
The following inning, a two-out walk to Chase DeLauter when Rhys Hoskins followed with a double to make it 2-0. Here was one case when Painter’s defense didn’t help him, as Edmundo Sosa took a long time to get the ball back in.
The Phillies didn’t take advantage of the few scoring opportunities they had. Messick walked two batters in the third, but Alec Bohm struck out to end the threat. In the sixth, a two out single by Bryson Stott chased Messick, and then Adolis Garcia walked against reliever Colin Holderman. But a Justin Crawford groundout ensured the Phillies’ run total remained at zero.
Their best chance to make a game of it came in the seventh when Brandon Marsh led off with a triple and Trea Turner followed with a walk. But after Kyle Schwarber struck out, Bryce Harper just missed a pitch, instead sending a long fly ball to center that stayed in the park. It was a sacrifice fly that represented the Phillies’ only run of the game, but it was still a letdown, especially when Bohm weakly grounded out to end the inning.
That felt a bit like game over, and that feeling grew stronger the following inning when Jonathan Bowlan gave up a home run to Travis Bazzana.
Sure enough, the Phillies went down in order the final two innings. Fittingly, Trea Turner ended the game with one of his trademark looping strikeouts, capping off an 0-12 series. The Phillies’ problems with lefty pitching aren’t limited to Turner, but when he’s supposed to be your star hitter from the right side, that’s certainly a big part of what’s ailing them.
The Phillies will now venture westward for a six-game Southern California road trip. Maybe the switch to Western time will help wake up the Phillies’ bats, because they seemed to sleepwalk through the entire weekend.
