Phillies fight but get walked-off by Cubs, extending losing streak to nine games

The Phillies’ fight was not enough on Thursday as their losing streak reached nine games in an 8-7 walk-off loss to the Cubs in 10 innings. After scoring in the seventh, eighth and ninth, not driving in Brandon Marsh from second base in the 10th inning haunted the Phillies.

Marsh, the automatic runner at second base to start the extra frame, was eventually stranded at third after three straight outs: a popout by Edmundo Sosa and back-to-back groundouts by Alec Bohm and Justin Crawford.

The Cubs plated their automatic runner, Ian Happ, with relative ease against Tanner Banks in the bottom-half of the inning. After Seiya Suzuki was intentionally walked to start the frame, a bloop single by Carson Kelly loaded the bases. Two batters later, Dansby Swanson drove an 0-2 fastball from Banks out to right field for the game-winning hit.

The Phillies also had the go-ahead run 90 feet away in the ninth in the form of Trea Turner, but Marsh went down looking on three pitches to end inning. A leadoff, pinch-hit home run by Adolis García earlier in the ninth tied the game after Brad Keller gave up a game-tying homer to Suzuki to leadoff the bottom of the eighth.

García’s pinch-hit success was the second of the game for Rob Thomson’s club. Edmundo Sosa delivered a game-tying, pinch-hit single with two outs in the eighth after a walk by Marsh extended the inning.

Marsh started the Phillies’ late surge with a home run in the seventh to make it a 6-3 game. It was his second home run of the day. His first gave his team an early 1-0 lead. The Phillies scored two more runs in the seventh — one on a throwing error by Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman and another on a sacrifice fly by Garrett Stubbs — to make their eighth- and ninth-inning runs important but ultimately wasted.

Now at 8-17, the Phillies head to Atlanta for a three-games series against the division-leading Braves.