The Phillies gazed upon their scoreless streak and said: no more. And so it was, in the bottom of the first inning on April 10th, 2026, that Trea Turner singled to left, and Kyle Schwarber walked, and Bryce Harper hit one to right to score Turner. The scoreless streak thus passed away at the age of twenty innings. It loved strikeouts and weakly hit fly balls, and its recipe for GIDPs was the envy of the neighborhood. It will be mourned by few who knew it. Brandon Marsh, not inclined to let said streak pass gracefully,
proceeded to dance on its grave by blasting an opposite-field homer to give the Phillies a 4-0 lead.
Speaking of Marsh, he was occupying an unusual role: that of cleanup hitter. It’s not entirely new to him (he did it five times last year), but it is a less typical spot for the hirsute hero. But he had 11 hits in nine games coming into tonight, and he was playing against a team that offers so few lefty pitchers that they might really believe the old fiction about lefties being agents of evil, and so putting him at the four spot seemed like smart dealing.
Smart dealing was what Jesús Luzardo was doing, too, at least for a while. He had little trouble handling the Diamondbacks allowing no hits through four, along with six K’s. Michael Soroka accrued one more strikeout than that through four, but accompanied them with a significantly less clean line. It seemed obvious that Soroka’s start would be the lesser one.
José Fernandez’ single, slapped one past a diving Turner, ended the no-hit bid but gave little reason to doubt the overall shape of the game. But a subsequent walk allowed to the alliterative Tim Tawa put two on, and then that endangered species, the bunt, emerged from the underbrush (courtesy of Alek Thomas) to load the bases with none out. Luzardo needed to find his form again, and fast. For a moment, it looked like he had: Jorge Barrossa went down swinging helplessly at a sweeper well outside the zone. But Ketel Marte singled to score two, and Ildemaro Vargas singled to score another, and a game that began swimmingly became less so. A break for the Phillies occurred when Luzardo struck out Geraldo Perdomo, and survived a challenge on the final strike. Then a break of the bad variety: a James McCann double scored two, gave the Diamondbacks the lead, and chased a suddenly mortal Luzardo. Jonathan Bowlan came in and quickly ended the unfortunate frame.
Any hope for an immediate response from the Phillies was thwarted by Soroka, who ended his day mid-sixth. The Phillies entered the seventh still down by one, with Brad Keller tasked with keeping things there; he did. But the Phillies bats, tasked with making something happen, did not. All was quiet. Somewhere beneath the earth, the scoreless streak began to stir.
Orion Kerkering came out for the eighth; his second appearance of the year. He allowed a hit on a hard luck single, with a lightly hit ball bouncing perfectly up the third base line, giving Perdomo just enough time to dash to first. A steal put him on second, and a sacrifice bunt (it was a banner day for bunt buffs) advanced him to third. But Kerkering induced a popup to end the inning, and gave the Philadelphia offense another chance to redeem themselves, to stop the resurrection of the streak.
Immediate Ks from Harper and Marsh seemed to put the kibosh on that redemption, though a single from Stott kept the hope alive, if flickering. But Adolís Garcia struck out, giving the home club a whopping, woeful 16 strikeouts.
Tanner Banks took the ninth. He was successful in thwarting the Snakes, but he did allow another bunt for a single. The bunt is alive and well, deep in the deserts of Arizona.
So is the scoreless streak, unfortunately, deep in the heart of South Philly. Bohm flew to shallow center to start the bottom ninth, and J.T. Realmuto hit a sharp liner that found a glove. That brought Justin Crawford to the plate. He shrugged off his tendency to hit the ball on the ground, sending a Paul Sewald pitch flying towards right, and over the head of a leaping Snake, and off the wall, and before anyone had time to blink, he was on third base. But Turner flew out, and the young man’s heroism was for naught. The scoreless streak has emerged from its grave, zombie-like ,and is now at a healthy eight innings. It craves flyouts like Audrey II craved human flesh.
The Phillies are 6-7. They continue the series against the Diamondbacks tomorrow at 1:05.
