A quite Phillies offense, defensive lapses results in series-opening loss to Guardians originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Ever have one of those nights? The kind where you trip over the dog and spill the milk and the doorbell rings just as you’re settling in to watch your favorite television show, which turns out to be just a re-run anyway?
Yeah, that’s the kind of evening it was for the Phillies Friday at Citizens Bank Park.
On Trea Turner Bobblehead Night, they repeatedly bobbled the baseball in a series of charged errors, mental lapses and unforced misplays.
On the annual Christmas in July theme night they were in the holiday spirit, giving away at least four extra outs against the Guardians. Twice starter Cristopher Sánchez picked runners off but didn’t get an out, once because of his own poor throw. Both those runners scored and the second misfire in the fourth extended the inning long enough for Cleveland to tack on an insurance run to down the suddenly floundering Phillies, 3-1 to the discontent of a sellout crowd of 44,448.
They’ve now lost seven of their last 10 games and are 12-13 since June 24.
“We’ve got to clean it up,” manager Rob Thomson said. “I’m not sure what it was. Our pregame work was crisp. Guys had a lot of energy coming off the off day. But we have to throw the ball accurately. We have to cover all our assignments. We made a couple mental errors and a couple physical errors.”
It didn’t take long for what became a pattern to emerge. Cleveland’s second batter, right fielder Angel Martinez, reached on a infield hit. When he tried to steal second, Sánchez threw behind him, trapping the runner between first and second. But when first baseman Bryce Harper threw back to second, Bryson Stott was in front of the base and shortstop Trea Turner was behind it, allowing the runner to reach with what was scored a stolen base.
Thomson said that Harper probably should have thrown to Stott earlier, but that held onto the ball when Martinez stopped then broke again for second. At that point, Turner should have been at the base, but wasn’t.
Errors by Turner in the second and Sánchez in the third didn’t come back to bite the Phillies but another mistake that again technically wasn’t an error did in the fourth.
After second baseman Andres Gimenez led off by bunting for a hit, he broke for second while Sánchez was still set. The lefthander appeared to have the runner cold, but his throw to second was off line….