Herrera’s blunder highlights another blown game

PHILADELPHIA » And with their 48th loss in their 70th game of the season ... the Phillies graduated from ugly to watchable.

That’s only because train wrecks are almost impossible sights from which to turn away.

As it often does, this 7-6 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday essentially began and ended with pitching failures, but was spiced by an even unhealthier dose of unthinking play.

And so starting pitcher Nick Pivetta, pitching semi-brilliantly on a night in which he’d strike out 10 Cardinals, issued a two-out walk to Stephen Piscotty in the sixth. Jedd Gyorko immediately followed by jerking one into the seats to turn what had once been a five-run lead into a 5-3 lead. The game went all Phillies bad after that.

The worst of a series of unsightly baseball plays was introduced by Odubel Herrera.

In trying to score a gamewinning run off a Freddy Galvis double, Herrera not only ran through a stop sign by third-base coach Juan Samuel, he almost ran Samuel over in the process.

That turned into an inning-ending out in the ninth as Herrera was thrown out by 15 feet ... and that’s a kind estimate. “I think that’s the first time since I’ve been here (coaching at third) that I had somebody run through a stop sign,” Samuel, who had given Herrera a long stare after the play, said later. “What I normally do is I put my hands up, I try to get in the way so they know I’m in front of them. I don’t know if it’s a case of him trying to be more aggressive in trying to score the winning run.”

Herrera pled guilty to making a mistake, but said he was indeed only trying to win.

Of course, that apparently takes using his eyes out of the equation.

“I was playing aggressive,” Herrera said. “I wanted to win the game. So when I was running to third, I put my head down and kept running to home plate . ... I saw (Samuel’s stop sign), but I saw it late. Again, I put my head down. That’s my mistake.

“I would still try to play it aggressive but I would do it differently because it didn’t pay off.”

Reliever Joaquin Benoit had come on in the eighth and with his first pitch issued a homer to pinch-hitter Jose Martinez to bring the Cards to within one. Then Hector Neris, looking typically unconfident in his closer’s role, almost predictably allowed Tommy Pham take him deep in the ninth for his second homer of the game and a 5-5 tie.

Then came Odubel’s ringing kill of a rally. And as if on cue, Edubray Ramos not only would blow the game in the Cardinals’ 10th, he brought the go-ahead run home by throwing a one-out pickoff attempt a few feet over Tommy Joseph’s head, allowing Martinez to score.

Just another embarrassing mistake by a team that seemingly always presents them in broad, ill-timed style.

Or does it just seem way?

“Those are mistakes, but they’re not getting out of hand,” manager Pete Mackanin that said. “We’re not making many mistakes. Tonight we did. The mistakes we’re making is giving the other team too many pitches to hit. Every team makes mistakes. I don’t think we’re worse than any other team.”

Oh. Maybe not ... but Herrera’s boo-boo was close to an outlandish pratfall. Samuel had to pull a dance move to avoid getting brushed as Herrera confidently dashed by en route to yet another embarrassing Phillies moment.

“I think his emotions got the best of him,” Mackanin said. “He just wanted to score so badly and he just put his head down and ran ... which is a mistake.”