A day after a pair of baserunning blunders sealed the Phillies’ 2-1 loss to the Dodgers, they committed another perplexing series of mistakes on Wednesday.
Bryan De La Cruz had just blasted a game-tying home run in the fifth inning for his first hit in a Phillies uniform, and Bryson Stott kept the pressure on Dodgers lefty Eric Lauer with a double to center field.
First, Rafael Marchán failed to advance Stott when he popped up a bunt attempt. And when Trea Turner’s 13-pitch at-bat ended with a grounder to third base, Stott ran right into the tag from Max Muncy.
If he stayed at second, there would have been a runner in scoring position for Kyle Schwarber, who was due up next and popped out to end the frame. When Muncy hit a two-run shot off Aaron Nola the next inning that put the Dodgers ahead for the 9-5 win, the what if loomed even larger.
“I think his thoughts were probably Muncy’s back and the ball’s hit hard, probably thinking he’s going to drop step on that ball, and he comes and gets it,” said interim manager Don Mattingly. “But if he had to do it again, he probably wouldn’t do it.”
Another bullpen meltdown ultimately broke the game open, but the lapses and lack of fundamentals in both the Phillies’ losses to the Dodgers this week are a growing concern for a team with postseason aspirations.
“Obviously, we got to execute,” Mattingly said. “We make the out at third when you’re already in scoring position, it’s not something you want to see. We didn’t get a hit after that, so I guess if you play it out it didn’t really matter, but still, it’s a situation where obviously we don’t want to run into an out of third base when we’re in scoring position.”
Another concern cropped up when Marchán left the game during the ninth inning with left knee pain. Garrett Stubbs was already placed on the injured list Tuesday with left wrist inflammation, and if the imaging Marchán undergoes Thursday reveals an injury, the Phillies will need a reinforcement catcher to back up J.T. Realmuto.
Before Nola left a changeup up in the zone for Muncy in the sixth inning, Seth Johnson had already been warming in the bullpen. Nola had been efficient early but started to show cracks in the fifth, when nine-hole hitter Dalton Rushing drove in two runs with a double.
With his pitch count still in good shape at 74, Mattingly decided to leave Nola in for the heart of the Dodgers order, starting with lefty Freddie Freeman. Mattingly said afterward that he felt thin in the bullpen, with several guys unavailable.
“He’d gotten Freddie out once, Muncy out a couple times with the slower stuff. It was a spot,” Mattingly said. “I can go left-handed there or at the bottom and turn the corner and get back to it. So I’m trying to get through the sixth there, and then kind of sets us up right.”
But Freeman pounced on a curveball for a double, before Muncy sent the changeup into the seats in left-center field. Nola rebounded by striking out Mookie Betts, but his night ended there, charged with five earned runs in 5⅓ innings. Johnson took over, striking out Kyle Tucker and Teoscar Hernández.
“It’s definitely frustrating. I feel like when I do go six or seven innings, it gives the team a better chance to win,” Nola said. “I put them in a better spot and put the bullpen in a better spot. Haven’t really done that too much this year, and then when I have gone out in the sixth and seventh I’ve kind of been hit by the long ball.”
The Dodgers then ran up the score against the bullpen with four runs the eighth inning. Tim Mayza left two inherited runners for Orion Kerkering, who then walked Betts on four pitches to load the bases.
A sacrifice fly scored one, and Kerkering’s command wavered again as he walked Hernández. Tommy Edman made him pay, lacing a bases-clearing triple to deep center field that gave the Dodgers a six-run cushion.
Alec Bohm, who also homered in the first inning, got a run back with an RBI single in the eighth that found a hole in the infield. After taking over for an injured Marchán in the ninth, Realmuto drove in another run with a single of his own. But the rally was stifled quickly when Turner struck out on three pitches to end the game.
Reliever Alex McFarlane made his major league debut in the ninth. His first assignment was Shohei Ohtani, who flew out on the first pitch. McFarlane’s outing was briefly interrupted after Marchán left the game with the trainers, but once Realmuto took over, he induced groundouts from Andy Pages and Muncy.
The Phillies have lost both series against the Dodgers this season and have been outscored 34-23 in six games.
But even the last two losses — and the concerning lack of fundamentals within them — haven’t changed how Mattingly thinks the Phillies stack up against the defending World Series champions.
“Nothing in this series changes our thoughts,” he said. “If we play well, we’re capable of beating anybody. So there’s nothing that happened in this series that changes my view at all.”
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