The Phillies needed to get back in the win column for various reasons.<\/p>\n
They were 2-5 coming out of the All-Star break.<\/p>\n
They had dropped three straight games, two to the Dodgers and one to the Yankees.<\/p>\n
And they had not won a game from this turn of the rotation in 68 days.<\/p>\n
Don Mattingly ran out a left-handed opener, Tim Mayza, on Saturday night against a flexible Yankees lineup that could stack either lefties or righties near the top.<\/p>\n
The plan was to follow with 32-year-old right-hander Brian Keller, whose contract was selected earlier in the afternoon. Keller was set to make his major-league debut, becoming the oldest Phillie to debut in two decades, since Chris Coste did so at 33 years, 111 days old in 2006.<\/p>\n
For the first half of the night, the plan worked well enough.<\/p>\n
But while the Phillies struggled against another left-handed starter, their pitching plan eventually gave way to the same issues that have followed them through this rough stretch in a 3-1 loss to the Yankees at Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n
Mayza delivered two scoreless innings before handing the ball to Keller. The strike-throwing righty, who threw 74 percent strikes and first-pitch strikes to 82 percent of hitters, allowed an opposite-field solo homer in the third but got through three innings in his debut and generated a solid amount of chase.<\/p>\n
The Phillies turned to Kyle Backhus in the sixth for his first outing since being recalled. He walked the first hitter he faced, then struck out the next two.<\/p>\n
Mattingly then brought in Seth Johnson, who entered with a 5.87 ERA, to face Paul Goldschmidt.<\/p>\n
Goldschmidt lifted a ball into shallow left field. Trea Turner went out. Edmundo Sosa, who was playing deep at third, came in. Turner tried to make a basket catch but could not secure it.<\/p>\n
It was ruled a hit as the crowd booed the Phillies\u2019 struggling shortstop.<\/p>\n
Then Cody Bellinger, who has looked comfortable in this ballpark since winning All-Star Game MVP here a week and a half ago, lined a run-scoring single to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Alec Bohm dropped a fly ball before the inning ended, again to the crowd\u2019s dismay.<\/p>\n
After failing to score with two on and two outs, the Phillies brought the World Cup back to Philadelphia and kicked the ball around some more.<\/p>\n
Jasson Dom\u00ednguez opened the seventh with a homer off Jos\u00e9 Alvarado to extend the lead. Alvarado struck out Jazz Chisholm Jr. before Bohm threw away a slow roller from Jose Caballero. The play was ruled a hit, but Bohm\u2019s error allowed Caballero to advance to second.<\/p>\n
The Phillies\u2019 bats were quiet the rest of the way as they lost the series to the Yankees.<\/p>\n
The opener-to-bulk strategy gave them five competitive innings from Mayza and Keller, essentially their best output from that rotation spot since May 18. Still, it was their 11th straight loss out of this spot in the rotation.<\/p>\n
But more of the Phillies’ issues showed up.<\/p>\n
They committed two errors. They entered with the lowest defensive runs saved mark in baseball. They are hitting .218 against left-handed starters. Their bullpen failed to hold the tie, and has been one of the worst in the game since the start of June. They are now 2-6 out of the break.<\/p>\n
And while it feels like the Aug. 3 trade deadline cannot come soon enough, it is fair to wonder how much one deadline can realistically fix.<\/p>\n
The Phillies need a back-end starter. They need a right-handed bat. They need bullpen help. They also need to play cleaner baseball.<\/p>\n
That will be a tall task for Dave Dombrowski, Preston Mattingly and the rest of the front office.<\/p>\n
(More to come…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies needed to get back in the win column for various reasons. They were 2-5 coming out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,259266,266099,82],"class_list":["post-826269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-phillies-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}