ATLANTA — During some of their most important games of the year, the Phillies can’t seem to get out of their own way.
Especially at Truist Park.
Thanks to Major League Baseball’s wonky schedule, the Phillies saw the Braves six times back in April. They went 1-5, with the fifth loss marking Rob Thomson’s final game as Philadelphia’s manager.
When the club returned to the Peach State this weekend, in September, things looked much different. The Phillies, in a playoff spot, were coming off a split of a four-game Labor Day weekend series against Atlanta, remaining firmly in the hunt for the top spot in the National League East despite already losing the season tiebreaker.
Jesús Luzardo practically handled the series finale himself, throwing a 109-pitch complete game Monday at Citizens Bank Park. But he didn’t recover as expected, dealing with soreness and stiffness in his shoulder as the week progressed.
When the Phillies scratched him from Saturday’s start, the circumstances weren’t exactly favorable. Their bullpen had been stretched by an extra-inning loss the night before, and now they were without the pitcher who had been arguably the best in baseball since July.
Tim Mayza got the ball as the opener and gave them everything they could have asked for.
The left-hander delivered three scoreless innings, extending his scoreless streak to seven consecutive outings.
Bryce Harper had already given him a lead, launching a solo homer in the first and taking his time around the bases, channeling a little of his inner Ronald Acuña Jr. after the Braves star supplied plenty of theatrics during the teams’ latest meeting in South Philadelphia.
Harper didn’t make much of it afterward.
“I really don’t think about it,” he said. “Obviously, they’re gonna boo me when I come in here. They love their players, hate the other team. Ronnie’s a great player. He’s gonna do what he needs to do to help his team win.”
For three innings, everything went according to plan.
Then Mayza exited — and the game quickly unraveled into a 12-2 loss to the Braves.
Don Mattingly turned to Brooks Raley for the fourth, with left-handed hitter Drake Baldwin leading off that pocket of Atlanta’s lineup.
Raley’s Phillies tenure had already gotten off to a rough start. Acquired from the Mets at the deadline after a strong first half, the veteran left-hander had a 4.66 ERA through his first 13 appearances with Philadelphia while pitching more sporadically than he had in New York.
He had also allowed runs in consecutive outings.
Acuña made it three.
After Raley retired Baldwin, Acuña launched a towering game-tying homer into the left-field seats. There wasn’t quite the same show around the bases this time, but the damage continued a troubling trend.
It was the fourth homer Raley had allowed in 14 appearances with the Phillies. He surrendered only two across 45 outings with the Mets.
“I don’t know what the key is,” Mattingly said of Raley’s recent struggles. “Obviously, I think he expects more.”
Mattingly acknowledged that facing the top of Atlanta’s order wasn’t exactly the ideal pocket for Raley, but the circumstances of the game left the Phillies little room to maneuver.
“We’re having to run through the top of the order right there,” he said. “It’s not really his spot, but today it had to be.”
Raley didn’t make excuses afterward.
“It’s baseball,” he said. “Obviously, not the success I would want, especially last night and today, but all you can do is execute pitches, go about your day, put your head down the next day and go back to work.”
Raley struck out Matt Olson but walked Ozzie Albies and allowed a single to Michael Harris II before Mattingly went to Grant Holman for his Phillies debut.
It became an inning he’d rather forget.
Holman hadn’t pitched in a game in 13 days, dating back to his time with Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He allowed consecutive two-out hits, including a two-run single by Mauricio Dubón, before finally getting the ground ball the Phillies needed from Sean Murphy.
They didn’t turn it into an out.
Bryson Stott double-clutched at third before making a low throw that Alec Bohm couldn’t dig out at first. The ball skipped past him and another Braves run scored.
It was Stott’s first error at third base.
“Anytime he makes an error, really, it surprises me because (his defense) been really, really good,” Mattingly said.
Mattingly thought Stott briefly checked second before rushing the throw.
“He still had time with Murphy running,” he said. “Just kind of threw it quick.”
The Phillies never recovered from it.
Ha-Seong Kim followed with a walk before another Atlanta run scored on a wild pitch. By then, Truist Park was deafening, with the Braves’ largest crowd of the season singing along as the inning kept going.
Baldwin drove a two-run double. Acuña, batting for the second time in the inning, added an RBI single.
By the time the Phillies finally escaped, Atlanta had put seven runs on the board in the fourth and opened an 8-1 lead.
None of the runs charged to Holman were earned.
Mattingly pointed back to that missed opportunity on Murphy’s ground ball.
“We get the ground ball and we get an out, you could argue that we’re in a 3-1 game there,” he said. “Then you do things a little differently.”
Instead, the game got away from them.
The Phillies looked lifeless from there, something that has become all too familiar for them in Atlanta this season.
They managed just two at-bats with runners in scoring position. Braves right-hander Tyler Mahle cruised through seven innings, allowing only Harper’s solo homer.
The Phillies’ offense had been red hot in August, ranking at or near the top of baseball in essentially every major offensive category. Through the first part of September, they have the lowest OPS in the majors.
Harper didn’t blame one play or one inning for where the Phillies find themselves.
“We got to play better baseball,” he said. “If we don’t, we’re not gonna be in.”
The sloppy play wasn’t finished, either.
Bohm later committed an error at first, Philadelphia’s second of the night.
Mattingly pushed back on the idea that one mistake has been causing the Phillies’ recent losses to spiral.
“When you get beat 2-1 and you put it on one play, it’s probably not right,” he said. “You didn’t do enough to win.”
His point was broader.
“Mistakes are something that you wanna minimize at all times,” Mattingly said. “If it’s defensively, if it’s on the bases, if it’s giving away at-bats, if it’s walking people, whatever that is, you want to minimize that at all times.”
The Phillies haven’t done enough of that lately.
And if Saturday night needed one final image to capture how far things had gotten away from them, it came in the seventh.
With the Phillies trailing 9-1 and Chase Shugart once again being asked to provide more than three outs, Garrett Stubbs eventually made his way to the mound.
In the seventh inning.
It marked the first time a Phillies position player had entered to pitch in the seventh inning or earlier since Roman Quinn on Aug. 16, 2018 against the Mets.
The Phillies came to Atlanta with an opportunity to make another push at the Braves in the division.
Instead, after losing the first two games of the series, they now sit six games back with 13 remaining. They’re also one game behind the Cubs for the top National League wild-card spot.
Mattingly isn’t spending much time looking at either race.
“I focus on tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t worry about the division.”
Winning the division and earning a first-round bye would have been ideal. Mattingly’s focus now is simpler.
“We got to get ourselves in,” he said. “And then if you’re good enough, you win your series and you move on.”
Harper’s message wasn’t much different.
“You can’t worry about what other teams are doing, especially when you’re in this situation,” he said. “We got to play better baseball.”
The Phillies will get another chance Sunday.
Andrew Painter gets the ball against Grant Holmes with an off day waiting on the other side.
Right now, that’s about as far ahead as the Phillies can afford to look.