Phillies strike out 16 times, can’t score after big first inning
PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies’ new cleanup hitter — at least for the time being — circled the bases in the bottom of the first inning, putting up a crooked number right away as the club returned home to Citizens Bank Park. Brandon Marsh hit a three-run home run to give Philadelphia an early four-run lead, and it seemed like the Phillies, shutout in their previous two games in San Francisco, might have been snapping out of their cold streak.
As it turned out, the offensive outbreak was just a flash in the pan. The Phillies struck out 16 times in a 5-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night, going silent for the final eight innings. D-backs starter Michael Soroka limited the damage after that first frame, racking up 10 strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings and surrendering just those four runs.
“Well, the entire team tonight had a lot of swing-and-miss,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “That was kind of our bugaboo. But we started off hot. I thought the first inning was really good, and then Soroka settled in.”
Trea Turner led off the bottom of the first with a single, Kyle Schwarber walked and Bryce Harper hooked an RBI double down the right-field line to go up 1-0. Marsh followed up with an opposite-field homer into the first row in left-center, and the Phillies had an early cushion.
But the bats cooled off from that point. And after the Diamondbacks put up five runs in the top of the fifth against left-handerJesús Luzardo to take the lead, the Phillies had no answer. They recorded just two hits in the final five innings.
Bryson Stott hit a two-out single in the bottom of the eighth, but he was stranded at first. Rookie Justin Crawford, an extreme contact hitter, nearly tied the game with two outs in the ninth, ultimately settling for a big triple off the wall. The Phillies couldn’t capitalize on the late hit, though, as Turner flew out to end the game.
“It was just one of those days,” Marsh, who struck out three times after his homer, said. “It’s baseball. You play every single day — a lot of at-bats, a lot of pitches. We just gotta tip our cap. They beat us by one today, so we got to be a lot better tomorrow.”
It’s been a bit of a struggle to score runs lately for the Phillies, now 6-7 on the season. But Marsh maintained that the lineup is not pressing “because we got a lot of ball to play.”
The Phillies will face D-backs right-hander Brandon Pfaadt in Game No. 14 on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s early, man,” Marsh said. “We still have a lot of time to go be great here in the future. So we’re going to flush today and work on finishing them tomorrow.”