Losing skid hits seven as floodgates open late in Chicago

CHICAGO — About three hours before Tuesday’s first pitch at Wrigley Field, it rained on the north side of Chicago — buckets, a downpour, for all of about 10 minutes, and then it stopped. It reminded of the old adage: When it rains, it pours. The Phillies sure know.

On a night when Jesús Luzardo battled through 4 2/3 stressful innings, escaping jams in the third and fourth, backed by some of the strongest defense of the season from the Phillies, with snags by Bryce Harper and Brandon Marsh that reduced or ended those threats, the Phillies lost on two plays above all: a walk that shouldn’t have been a walk, and a 67-mph two-out bloop.

If it feels like they can’t buy a win, perhaps it’s strangely comforting that much of it was self-inflicted.

The Phillies walked 10 batters and hit two on Tuesday night. Two walks in the fifth inning (one by Luzardo, one by Orion Kerkering) preceded the RBI walk — which would’ve flipped to an inning-ending strikeout with the game still scoreless, had J.T. Realmuto pulled the ABS trigger.

“It’s tough to win a ballgame when you give up 10 walks and throw 194 pitches,” manager Rob Thomson said postgame. “We’ve got to get our starters back to some length, just to give the bullpen a little bit of rest. We haven’t done that, which is kind of our calling card.”

In all, Luzardo went 4 2/3 innings with five hits, four walks and three strikeouts. He threw 100 pitches.

“Obviously I didn’t have my best stuff. Kind of a battle for the majority of the outing, finding the zone, making pitches when I needed to. But definitely a step in the right direction with guys on base, getting out of jams,” Luzardo said postgame. “Definitely not my best day with command, and kind of struggled with finding the zone at times.”

In between the RBI walk and the bloop, the Phillies had momentary relief, when Kyle Schwarber deposited his 63rd career regular-season Wrigley Field homer just beyond the basket in right field. It was one of four runs for the Phillies on the night. The second and third came when Bryce Harper roped a two-run shot to left-center in the eighth.

It would’ve made more of a difference had Tim Mayza not surrendered three runs on two homers in the half inning before Harper’s homer. To stick with the above analogy, that represented the floodgates opening, stretching the score to 6-1. After the Harper homer, a wild pitch from José Alvarado, who exited with what Thomson said were back spasms, made it 7-3.

The Phillies fought in the ninth. They brought the tying run to the plate before Caleb Thielbar left him there.

“They’re playing hard,” Thomson said. “They’re finishing games.”

The Phillies are 8-15. They have officially lost the season series to the Cubs, which, in some universe, has tiebreaker implications. From where things currently are, a universe where that matters seems far.

“This isn’t the start that we wanted, by any means,” Schwarber said. “The effort’s always there … The want, desire, the effort, everything’s there. It’s just not coming together. As you go out there and keep playing, the more that you think about it not coming together, the more that it probably won’t come together. If you kinda trick the brain, whatever it is, saying that it is gonna come together, and you believe it, it’s gonna come together.”

“I think that we all know where we’re at,” Luzardo said. “There’s still obviously that thought that it’s early, we can turn it around. But we know how important it is to get back on track. I know that everyone in here finds it extremely important to get back on track.”