PHILADELPHIA —Given the way things are going for the Phillies, there were several reasons why many of the fans in attendance Wednesday night might have greeted manager Joe Girardi with a loud, long, gutteral boo as he stepped out of the dugout with two out in the eighth inning. But, well, let’s just say there was no mistaking the motive for this particular jeer.
Zack Wheeler, runner-up for the Cy Young Award last year, was about to be taken out of a scoreless tie after 79 pitches.
To be fair, Wheeler barely pitched in spring training and didn’t get beyond the sixth inning in any of his first four starts. Still, it was a curious move by Girardi, even with lefty-hitting Texas Rangers leadoff man Nathaniel Lowe due to bat for a fourth time in the game and Wheeler unlikely to come back out for the ninth inning if he had recorded one more out to end the eighth.
It wasn’t the reason the Phillies lost again, 2-1 in 10 innings, and got swept by the Rangers in a two-game mini-interleague series. They have dropped three games in a row and three out of four with the division-leading New York Mets coming to town for a four-game series beginning Thursday night.
No, the Phillies lost because they didn’t hit. Again. Built to mash with a star-laded, $125 million batting order, they got blanked for seven innings by Rangers lefty Martín Pérez and hit into bad luck late in the game. They finished 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left seven men on base.
In the last six games, the Phillies are batting a cool 35-for-188 (.186) and have scored a total of 22 runs.
Not how they drew it up.
Leaving Wheeler in the game for one more batter wouldn’t have changed any of that. Nor would it have stopped the Rangers from scoring twice in the 10th inning, the first time this season the Phillies played extra innings.
Old friend Brad Miller — remember Bamboo Brad? — dunked a two-run single in front of right fielder Nick Castellanos against reliever Brad Hand to snap a scoreless tie. The Phillies drove in ghost-running Jean Segura in the 10th without getting a hit but wound up falling short.
If there was a silver lining, it was Wheeler, who has gotten better with each successive start since allowing seven runs in three innings April 17 in Miami. And in his most recent outing, last Thursday against the Colorado Rockies, he yielded a lone hit and overcame four walks in six scoreless innings.
“I like the progression that he’s made,” Girardi said before the game. “He’s seemed to be getting a little bit physically better each time in a sense, more close to what he was last year.”
There were times against the Rangers when he looked exactly like he did last year. Take the first inning. He struck out Corey Seager looking on a 97.5 mph fastball, his fastest pitch of the season. He averaged 96.2 mph on his heater, impressive considering he hadn’t topped 97.2 mph in his previous starts.
Big-play Bohm
Third baseman Alec Bohm took the blame Monday night when he made two defensive mistakes that led to three unearned runs in a 6-4 loss to the Rangers.
“You see the score,” Bohm said. “It lost us the game.”
One night later, Bohm made amends with a run-saving play in the seventh inning. With one out, he backtracked into shallow left field to snare Zach Reks’ pop fly, then turned and fired a one-hopper to home plate to cut down Adolis García, who tagged up and tried to score from third.
Upon further review
Castellanos, back in the lineup after a one-game absence for the birth of his son, circled the bases after appearing to break the scoreless stalemate with a two-out solo homer in the sixth inning.
But the replay showed that a fan reached over the railing in right field and interfered with the ball, which wouldn’t otherwise have cleared the wall. Castellanos was sent back to second base and credited with a ground-rule double.
Bryce Harper followed with a flyout, and the game stayed tied.
Double trouble
Let it be said that the Phillies had chances to score against Pérez.
Not only did they put runners on base in five of his seven innings, but the leadoff man reached four times. They grounded into three rally-killing double plays — Matt Vierling in the third inning, Segura in the fifth, and Bohm in the sixth.
