It was a chaotic Friday in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
The 76ers signed LeBron James, arguably the greatest athlete to ever come to the city. Fans across the region had reason to lose their minds.<\/p>\n
But a ballgame still had to be played that night.<\/p>\n
The Phillies welcomed the New York Yankees to Citizens Bank Park to begin a three-game set. Their bats never really showed up.<\/p>\n
The club from the city that never sleeps put the Phillies\u2019 offense to sleep in a 1-0 loss.<\/p>\n
Yankees starter Cam Schlittler was in control from the moment he took the mound. Sporting an American League-best 2.20 ERA, the second-year right-hander continued his breakout season.<\/p>\n
What you see is what you get from the first-time All-Star. He entered the night throwing 93 percent fastballs, between his four-seamer, sinker and cutter. He lives in the strike zone, which has been central to his Cy Young-type campaign.<\/p>\n
The Phillies saw 86 percent heaters.<\/p>\n
They collected just two hits against Schlittler, who struck out 12 and walked none over 7 1\/3 scoreless frames. It was not quite the same kind of shutdown they saw from Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski on June 12 in Milwaukee, when he threw a complete-game shutout with 15 strikeouts.<\/p>\n
But the feeling was similar.<\/p>\n
It’s not that surprising either. The Phillies entered with the worst OPS in baseball on pitches 98 mph or harder, at .472. It was .707 last year, seventh best in baseball. They were also tied for the most strikeouts in baseball against pitches in that range.<\/p>\n
Schlittler sat there all night, much like Misiorowski did.<\/p>\n
And this has not been limited to the Phillies\u2019 dismal 9-19 start. Since Don Mattingly took over, they have posted a .457 OPS against pitches 98 mph or harder, again the worst mark in the National League.<\/p>\n
The Phillies did have one late chance after Schlittler finally exited.<\/p>\n
He left two runners on with one out in the eighth, and Yankees manager Aaron Boone went to left-hander Brent Headrick. Edmundo Sosa singled to load the bases, bringing the top of the order to the plate with the game still within one swing.<\/p>\n
But Trea Turner lined out and Kyle Schwarber bounced out, ending the Phillies\u2019 best chance of the night.<\/p>\n
While the offense was held down, the Phillies stayed in the game because Jes\u00fas Luzardo gave them another strong outing.<\/p>\n
The left-hander, who joked earlier this year that he did not like pitching in the City Connect uniforms, delivered seven innings of one-run ball with nine strikeouts. The lone run came on a solo homer by Paul Goldschmidt, statistically the best right-handed hitter in baseball against lefties this season.<\/p>\n
It was one of Luzardo\u2019s best starts of the year at Citizens Bank Park, if not his best.<\/p>\n
Luzardo has now completed at least five innings in 13 straight starts. The last time he allowed more than two runs in an outing was June 5.<\/p>\n
Since then?<\/p>\n
He has posted a 1.46 ERA and a 0.93 WHIP, with a 36.5 percent strikeout rate and 72 strikeouts in 49 1\/3 innings over eight starts.<\/p>\n
His sweeper was once again a separator. The Yankees went 0-for-9 against the pitch with seven strikeouts. Opposing hitters are now batting .118 against Luzardo\u2019s sweeper, which he throws more than any other pitch. He used it 37 percent of the time Friday night.<\/p>\n
The Phillies will likely turn to 32-year-old right-hander Brian Keller on Saturday, when they are expected to activate him and select his contract from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. They could choose to use an opener depending on how the Yankees build their lineup.<\/p>\n
Keller has a 2.06 ERA in 10 starts with Lehigh Valley and has done a strong job keeping runners off base, posting a 0.99 WHIP.<\/p>\n
The Phillies will face Yankees left-hander Ryan Weathers, who does not throw as hard as Schlittler and has allowed four or more runs in two of his last three starts.<\/p>\n
(More to come…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a chaotic Friday in Philadelphia. The 76ers signed LeBron James, arguably the greatest athlete to ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,11350,17086],"class_list":["post-251587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-phillies-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}