Tag: jesús luzardo

Who would have guessed during the winter that Taijuan Walker would pitch in such a big game near the end of August?

Nobody could have envisioned it for Walker, whose eventual release felt more likely than any appearances of significance. But there he was on Wednesday evening in Flushing, N.Y., jogging to the mound to pitch in a game it felt like the Phillies had to win.

The Phillies took the field on Wednesday with a 76-56 record, 20 games over .500 holding a 5.0-game division lead. But these are the Mets at Citi Field, and the combination of that team and its ballpark has become torturous for the Phillies. Factoring in last season’s National League Division Series, the Phillies’ losing streak at Citi Field was nine games before Wednesday.

That included an embarrassing 13-3 loss on Monday night when new ace Cristopher Sánchez surprisingly lost control, and an agonizing 6-5 walk-off defeat on Tuesday in which new closer Jhoan Duran failed to record an out.

So, this was not just another start for Walker, whose combination of gutty pitching and good luck has enabled him to help the Phillies in a way he was not capable of doing last year. But in the third inning, the Mets tagged Walker for five consecutive hits to open the frame, pushing three runs across. Walker notched a strikeout and induced a double play to escape the jam and was on the verge of completing five innings while limiting the damage to those three runs. But with two outs in the fifth inning, Mark Vientos knocked a base hit up the middle to add another run. Walker was able to get through the inning, completing his night at 5.0 innings pitched and four earned runs.

Walker’s effort to keep the Phillies in the game was valiant. But when Daniel Robert relieved him in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Phillies had sent the minimum number of batters to the plate. In a game they needed to win — to prove to themselves that they can win at Citi Field — the Phillies’ expensive lineup went dormant. They did so against rookie Nolan McLean, one of New York’s top prospects making his third major-league start.

McLean’s expansive pitch mix full of absurd movement rendered Phillies hitters completely inept. The first time he faced more than three batters in an inning was the top of the seventh. McLean completed that frame with no serious threat — J.T. Realmuto popped out on the infield after a two-out single from Bryce Harper — and was only at 75 pitches. Finally, McLean allowed back-to-back singles to begin the eighth inning. With no outs and runners on the corners, the Phillies pushed across — you guessed it — zero runs. Nick Castellanos and Bryson Stott hit fly balls too shallow to score the slower Alec Bohm and Harrison Bader hit a dribbler back to McLean, who scattered four baserunners in eight shutout innings.

That individual failure on the Phillies’ part did not matter much regardless, as the Mets had already given McLean additional margin for error when Tanner Banks allowed a two-run shot to Vientos in the bottom half of the seventh.

The game was over at that point. To anyone with experience watching these two teams face off, it felt like it was over a whole lot earlier.

The Phillies lost to the Mets on Wednesday night, 6-0. They have lost 10 games in a row at Citi Field, and in three miserable days their lead in the National League East shrunk from seven games to four. Instead of landing a haymaker to put themselves in position to repeat as division champions, the Phillies were completely outclassed in every way by the team that completely outclassed them in every way last October.

From Wednesday’s futile showing to the massive disappointments across the two earlier games, everything else to know about yet another horrid showing from the Phillies in New York:

Odds and ends

• It was almost jarring to see Sánchez lose his footing on Monday. He did so both literally and figuratively. After three no-hit innings, Sánchez allowed a Juan Soto single, then immediately spun a double play. He gave up a two-out single to Pete Alonso, then his cleat got caught on the mound. Alonso took second base on the balk and things unraveled entirely. In the blink of an eye, a 3-0 Phillies lead had turned into a 3-3 tie.

Sánchez, whose remarkable transformation as a pitcher has included the development of a stoic nature on the mound, was uncharacteristically rattled. He allowed another run in the fifth inning, returned for the sixth and gave up an additional when he allowed two doubles. David Robertson could not prevent an inherited runner from scoring, and Sánchez’s day ended with six runs (five earned) to his name.

The Phillies were trailing 6-3 in the seventh inning when Jordan Romano entered the game. By the time the right-hander had recorded three outs, the Mets were leading 10-3. Joe Ross relieved Romano in the eighth inning. By the time he had recorded three outs, the Mets were leading 13-3. The following day, Romano and Ross were removed from the bullpen.

• Jesús Luzardo brought some serious velocity on Tuesday, a clear sign that he knew the stakes. His fastball nearly touched 100 miles per hour at one point, and despite the brutally small strike zone of a call-up umpire he was able to work his way out of trouble in the first and fourth innings.

With a 2-0 lead entering the fifth inning, Luzardo also lost it. He bookended two singles with a hit batsman and walk, and suddenly his night was over. Luzardo let out his frustration on the umpire after being removed from the game and was promptly ejected. A degree in lip-reading is not needed here:

Orion Kerkering entered a game before the sixth inning for just the second time all year with no outs and the bases loaded trying to protect a one-run lead. He failed to do so. All three of Luzardo’s runners scored and Kerkering gave up an earned run of his own.

Bader’s aforementioned big swing knotted the game up in the eighth inning, and the Phillies put a runner in scoring position later in the inning before Mets closer Edwin Díaz put out the fire. José Alvarado and Díaz then traded scoreless frames, taking a 5-5 game to the bottom of the ninth inning. New Phillies closer Jhoan Duran was introduced to the team’s fiercest rivalry and gave up four consecutive singles, with Brandon Nimmo’s ending the game.

• As manager Rob Thomson continues to shuffle his outfielders on a daily basis, he went with three different combinations on the grass in this series. On Wednesday, Brandon Marsh sat despite a right-handed pitcher being on the mound. Perhaps it was Bader being rewarded for hitting a clutch home run the night before, even though Bader’s game-tying two-run shot against Ryan Helsley in the eighth inning did not end up leading to a complete comeback.Here is how the Phillies looked in the outfield in each game of this series:

Each of Max Kepler and Nick Castellanos getting two starts seemed likely before the series, but the same could have been said for Bader and Marsh. Instead, Bader started in center field all three days while Marsh sat on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Up next: The Phillies are returning home for a four-game series against the Atlanta Braves beginning on Thursday. That precedes a six-game road trip, which will be followed up by another series against the Mets — that time in Philadelphia.

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