PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies like to use the phrase “flush it.” After a tough loss — like their 3-2 defeat against the Astros in Game 5 of the World Series on Thursday — it is often what they say they’ll do, and more times than not they actually do it. At the beginning of the season, they struggled with this. They’d rattle off three, four, five losses at a time. By May 31, they were 21-29 and 12.5 games back in the National League East.
Jean Segura was placed on the injured list the next day, with a right index finger fracture. In retrospect, Kyle Gibson called it “rock bottom.”
“We were in a tough spot,” Gibson said. “I also think the whole situation with Joe [Girardi] kind of had everybody holding their breath. When is it going to happen? What is going to happen? You can’t ignore those rumors, right. You’re trying to play a game. You’re trying to not worry about it. But we’re all humans. I think that was part of it.
