Bullpen blows another as Phils edge toward season abyss
When they could least afford it, the Phillies pulled a familiar page from their 2020 playbook Friday night.
Having forged an early, three-run lead that couldn’t be considered safe with starting pitcher Vince Velasquez running up his usual high pitch count, it would come down to manager Joe Girardi needing to count on his bullpen to get through what obviously was a must-win game against the Tampa Bay Rays. It didn’t.
First, Tommy Hunter gave up a game-tying home run to Brett Phillips in the sixth inning. Then, after Adam Morgan issued a pair of one-out walks in the eighth, replacement reliever Hector Neris allowed a two-out, two-run single to West Chester’s Joey
Wendle, thereby composing a 6-4 defeat that essentially puts the Phillies on the verge of elimination from the playoff race.
Trying to catch the secondplace Marlins in the East or the Giants or Reds in the wild card chase, the Phillies have fallen to 28-30 and almost certainly have to win their last two games of the season against the Rays to have any chance.
They would have never found themselves in this position were it not for the seasonlong failures of the bullpen.
“Everybody down there is working hard,” said Morgan, who got the first out in the eighth before allowing a single to Yoshi Tsutsugo (now hitting .199), then walking .144 hitter Hunter Renfro and Phillips consecutively, leaving them loaded for Neris.
“Nobody’s throwing in the towel,” Morgan added.
“We’re trying to get better. We hate it ... we hate we’re the burden right now, but sometimes that happens.”
It’s been happening all short season for the Phillies, who continue to chase the incompetence of the 1930 Phillies with a bullpen flashing a collective ERA of above 7.
Morgan, one of the bullpen’s steadier residents in recent seasons, has seen his club essentially fold down the stretch the past two seasons. This year is different, with only a 60-game schedule, but he certainly knows there would have been nothing to fold had the bullpen pitched anywhere approaching average.
“The bullpen, we’re out there working hard,” Morgan said, “and I know these guys in the clubhouse are working hard, too. I don’t think it has anything to do with the managers ... but I just don’t have an answer for you.”
Velasquez has spent time in that bullpen, but was this club’s fifth starter down the stretch. Coming off his best outing, he didn’t fare poorly at first, carrying a 4-1 lead into the Rays’ fifth. But as his pitch count rose, a common Double-V malady, the Rays eventually got to him. Velasquez allowed two runs in the fifth before exiting that frame with one out and a precious one-run lead.
Hunter came in and kept it into the sixth, but with one out gave up the tying homer to Phillips.
Morgan doesn’t think it’s time for the Phillies to give up quite yet. The same goes for the bullpen.
“We know what’s happening, but we’re not going to sit there and sulk about it,” Morgan said. “We’re trying to figure out ways to get better, and if we don’t have our best stuff ... how do we attack
guys in different ways?
“I don’t think anybody’s pointing a finger. I just know we’re down there and working every single day. We’re not trying to be how we are.”
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NOTES » Velasquez’s no-decision left him with a 5.56 ERA, while Morgan’s forgettable outing bumped his ERA to 5.54. ... Girardi mixed his lineup up to give banged up players Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto and Scott Kingery
some much needed at-bats. Harper was the designated hitter, Realmuto played at first and Kingery was in center, “less taxing” assignments for them, Girardi indicated. It seemed to work in part, as Kingery and Harper had a pair of hits each, with Harper getting a triple and two RBIs to help the Phillies build the early lead. “I’m kind of thinking of him as a DH every day,” Girardi said of Harper before the game.