Hold up: Padres 4, Phillies 2

Dusty. Baby…

Thankfully out of San Francisco, the Phillies headed south to San Diego to take on a Padres team that is still on the fringes of the wild card chase, but hasn’t been playing great baseball of late. It’s a tough series, no doubt, but this game was a winnable game. Instead, a questionable decision late, coupled with some shoddy fielding, ended up costing them the win.

The Phillies got on the board first in this one when Nick Castellanos took a hanging slider from Padres starter Ryan Bergert deep to center, this time beyond Jackson Merrill’s reach for a solo home run.

However, Suarez couldn’t make the lead hold. After giving up a leadoff single in the bottom of the frame to Xander Bogaerts, Merrill tried to bunt him over, but instead induced a rare error by Suarez that allowed Bogaerts to scamper to third and have runners on the corners with no one out. Jose Iglesias inside outed a double down the line to tie the game at one. A strikeout by Suarez got one out, then a groundball that scored Merrill scored another and had the hopes that maybe the game would stay at 2-1, but Fernando Tatis, Jr. singled in Iglesias and it was 3-1 in a flash.

Then here came Kyle Schwarber. Bergert left a fastball over the middle of the plate and Schwarber walloped it some 425 feet to cut the lead to 3-2.

Thirty home runs before the All-Star break. Mercy, mercy me.

However, Bergert settled down after that and kept the offense at bay. In the fifth, with his pitch count rising, he allowed two runners on, one on a great play by Tatis to throw out J.T. Realmuto at second on a sinking line drive. Bergert would be replaced by Yuki Matsui, who then walked Schwarber to load the bases for Bryce Harper.

Naturally, Harper swung at the first pitch, grounded out to first and ended the threat.

For his own part, Suarez also settled in quite a bit. The second inning in which he allowed the three runs, he looked a bit off, leaving pitches over the plate instead of just on the edges where he normally lives. San Diego took advantage of that and his fielding miscue to score those runs, but he ended up being able to pitch into the seventh inning, putting two runners on the corners with two outs before departing in favor of Tanner Banks, who got out of the trouble.

In the eighth, there was another threat. Facing Jason Adam, another the Padres’ endless parade of effective relievers, Trea Turner walked, Harper laced a one out single to put runners on first and second with one out for Alec Bohm, who singled to load the bases. However, this kind of scoring opportunity proved too much for the Phillies as Nick Castellanos hit a dribbler that the Padres converted into an out at home and Max Kepler popped up to end the threat and keep it 3-2 in favor of San Diego.

Want to guess what happened with the first hitter for the Padres?

Inevitable.

In the ninth, the Phillies had to face Robert Suarez to get back in it, but couldn’t muster a thing, succumbing to the closer and losing to the Padres.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of the entire game was not the lack of patience at the plate. It was Trea Turner not being sent on the ball hit to Tatis in right in the eighth inning. Maybe he scores, maybe he gets thrown out at home. With runners behind him likely moving into scoring position, the team would have had another chance to bring them home were Turner nailed at the plate, so not sending him felt like a mistake that cost them a chance to win the game. It’s not the sole reason they lost, but it surely did not help.

They’ll try and take one tomorrow with their ace on the hill in Zack Wheeler.