The Phillies’ struggles continued in Chicago
The Phillies will not suck forevermore. But they certainly suck right now.
Despite the recent evidence to the contrary, this is not an awful team. But even good teams hit patches in a season where they look awful, and the Phillies are clearly mired in one of those patches at the moment. That’s unfortunate timing, because for the second straight series, they’re facing a team for whom a lot of things are going right. Those trends continued on Friday night as the Phillies dropped a 4-0 game to the Chicago Cubs that was even less fun than that score would indicate.
Taijuan Walker got the ball for the Phillies, which is a really bad tone setter coming off of a day off. Walker seemed determined to put as many runners on base as he could, which is not conducive to winning baseball games. But his start wasn’t a complete disaster thanks to him somehow escaping a bases loaded jam in the first inning.
Just your standard 37-pitch, scoreless inning from Taijuan Walker.
Not great but at least the dude battled for a team that could use a little of that right now.
— Bob Wankel (@Bob_Wankel) April 25, 2025
He wasn’t as successful escaping jams in the second and third innings, giving up a solo run in each. A 2-0 lead shouldn’t be insurmountable, but the way the Phillies’ offense is going, it sure felt that way. The Phillies had two runners on in the first, but because they are absolutely incapable of getting an extra base hit with runners in scoring position, they failed to score. The failure to score in the frame didn’t make the first inning unique. The Phillies apparently liked not scoring in the inning so much that they repeated the feat eight times.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for the recent struggles, but I think most of it rests on the biggest names in the lineup. Leaving Citi Field did not seem to snap Bryce Harper out of his slump, and Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber seem to be following his lead. Their showing in the eighth inning was especially pathetic.
Drew Pomeranz, who hasn’t pitched in the bigs since 2021, just sat down Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber on strikes on a combined 7 pitches.
— The Good Phight (@TheGoodPhight) April 25, 2025
Because Walker threw so many pitches early on, he was out of the game after three innings. Asking the Phillies’ bullpen to cover five innings seems frightening, but they weren’t a complete disaster, giving up two runs over that span. But it didn’t come close to mattering.
The teams will be back at it tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully between now and then, the Phillies can figure out a way to reverse their struggles at the plate. Because if they don’t, I can’t imagine that game will be much more fun to watch than this one was.