ST. LOUIS \u2013 The Phillies are headed to Iowa to play in Major League Baseball\u2019s Field of Dreams game on Thursday. Surely, they’re happy to put Busch Stadium in their rearview mirror because it was a Field of Nightmares.<\/p>\n
The Phils lost two of three to the St. Louis Cardinals. The losses came in games started by co-aces Cristopher Sanchez and Zack Wheeler.<\/p>\n
The Cardinals laid a 7-1 beating on Wheeler and the boys in the series finale Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Phillies went into the All-Star break 11 games over .500 and holding the second National League wild-card spot with a two-game cushion.<\/p>\n
Since the break, they are 10-15 and in danger of slipping off the wild-card grid for the first time since June 3, depending on the results of the San Diego and Arizona games Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Phillies have lost six of the eight series they have played after the break.<\/p>\n
There are just 40 games remaining in the regular season. Can they really expect to make the postseason for the fifth straight season if this continues?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not playing like this,\u201d catcher J.T. Realmuto said moments after Wednesday\u2019s loss. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to turn it around. There\u2019s still plenty of time to do so. But nobody in here is happy about the brand of baseball we\u2019re playing right now. We\u2019ve just got to figure it out, turn it around and play a lot better here pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bryce Harper concurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re still there,” he said of the wild card. “But we\u2019re not playing great baseball. The last two weeks, we should have won multiple games and haven\u2019t. We\u2019ve had leads and haven\u2019t won. We\u2019re kind of shooting ourselves in the foot. Today, it was a 1-1 game and it gets busted open. With men in scoring position, we didn\u2019t come through in this series.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entire trip to St. Louis was a hot and humid nightmare. The Phils basically ran out of pitching as they rested much of their bullpen and eked out a 6-5 win Monday night.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, they wasted six shutout innings from S\u00e1nchez, went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and hit into four double plays on their way to a 2-0 loss.<\/p>\n
In Wednesday\u2019s finale, the bats went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position. The Phils ended up scoring just one run in the final two games.<\/p>\n
Wheeler\u2019s recent performances, including Wednesday\u2019s, are as much a concern as the inconsistent offense. He was tagged for four two-out runs in the fifth inning as the Cardinals put an end to his day at 84 pitches. The right-hander gave up five hits in the 35-pitch inning, including a pair of ringing doubles. Wheeler relied heavily on his four-seam fastball, throwing it 37 percent of the time. The pitch averaged 94.4 mph, down from its season average of 95.2 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care about velocity,\u201d he said. \u201cI care about getting outs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler has given up 13 earned runs in his last four starts as his ERA has climbed from 2.16 to 2.89. He has lost his last two starts and the Phillies are 1-4 in his last five.<\/p>\n
If the Phils don\u2019t win the games that Wheeler and S\u00e1nchez start, it\u2019s going to be very difficult to make the postseason for a fifth straight season.<\/p>\n
Wheeler wanted to stay in the game after the fifth, but he threw 116 pitches in his previous outing and manager Don Mattingly decided that was enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was looking out for me and that was probably the best thing,\u201d Wheeler said.<\/p>\n
After his previous start, a loss to Toronto in which he gave up four runs and walked a season-high five in 5 1\/3 innings, Wheeler said he didn\u2019t feel like himself. He reiterated that after Wednesday\u2019s outing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little out of whack right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve just got to get it figured out and come back being more sharp.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler was asked if he believed his issues were stuff-related or mechanical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cI just need to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realmuto mentioned Wheeler\u2019s fastball command.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like he might be fighting his mechanics a little bit, just his command,\u201d Realmuto said. \u201cWhen he\u2019s feeling right, his fastball command is spot on and he\u2019s able to work in-out, up-down and not miss a lot of locations. I\u2019ve felt like recently, he\u2019s just a little erratic at times, just bigger misses than you\u2019re used to seeing from him. The stuff is still there. I think he\u2019s just fighting himself mechanically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler was so close to being out of the fifth inning with the score\u00a0tied, 1-1. JJ Wetherholt bounced a two-out single past Alec Bohm at first base to fuel the rally. Bohm had been holding a runner and just missed making a play on the ball. Wheeler then gave up an RBI single to Ivan Herrera on a full-count fastball and back-to-back doubles to Alec Burleson and Jordan Walker. Burleson hit a fastball up and out of the zone to drive in two runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a frustrating day in general,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cI made some good pitches up and they put the bat on the ball. (Burleson) can hit a high fastball. I hate saying it, but sometimes you have to give the guy credit. That\u2019s one of those times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only four of the five runs that Wheeler allowed were earned. Bohm made an error at first base to set up the Cardinals\u2019 first run in the second inning. The Phillies tied the game against St. Louis starter Kyle Leahy in the fourth on back-to-back doubles by Harper and Luis Arraez. Harper is playing through left knee soreness. After the game, he continued to say the issue will not require time off.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s on to the Field of Dreams for the Phillies. They had enough of the Field of Nightmares, but need to start playing better or they\u2019ll surely run into more.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2013 The Phillies are headed to Iowa to play in Major League Baseball\u2019s Field of Dreams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,227211,85],"class_list":["post-853107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}