PITTSBURGH — The Phillies were already going through a cold spell before learning Friday afternoon that they’d again be without Bryce Harper, who is day-to-day with right wrist soreness after missing five games last week with right elbow swelling.
They haven’t hit much lately, they haven’t had Harper much lately, they’re experiencing perhaps Kyle Schwarber’s first cold spell of the season and the Phillies have lost seven of their last eight games, falling Friday night to the Pirates, 5-4, on a walk-off sacrifice fly.
“It’s weird, we either go really hot or really cold,” Trea Turner said. “I feel like especially veteran players and some of our young guys getting older, that consistency is kind of what we pride ourselves on and it hasn’t really been there. It feels like we can do everything a little bit better, need to find ways to win, moving guys, hitting them in, playing better defense, we can all contribute a little bit more.”
It has been another season of peaks and valleys for the Phillies, who have done this basically every year since 2022. They caught fire late in ’22 and rode the momentum all the way to a World Series advantage before the offense went silent. They completely dominated their opponents in the first eight games of the 2023 postseason until everything turned midway through the NLCS. They were on pace for 110 wins last July but struggled in the second half and were thoroughly outplayed by the Mets in October. Every team goes through streaks but the Phillies’ have been more pronounced in both ways.
It’s a good team, a veteran team, one that should win 90-plus games again in 2025, but the last six weeks have been up and down, up and down. The Phillies’ last 42 games have been five straight losses followed by 23 wins in 29 games, then seven losses out of eight.
“We’re in a little bit of a funk right now, we’ve just got to fight through it,” manager Rob Thomson said.
Turner did his part Friday, scoring the Phillies’ first two runs and driving in their next two as part of a three-hit night. The rest of the lineup was 4-for-29 and the Phils made 11 straight outs to end the game.
They’re receiving little production from all four members of the left and center field platoons — Max Kepler, Weston Wilson, Brandon Marsh and Johan Rojas — and Bryson Stott has a .263 on-base percentage in his last 95 plate appearances.
It’s exacerbated by not having Harper or the locked-in version of Schwarber, who is 3-for-20 with 10 strikeouts since Sunday.
“That plays into it, there’s no doubt about it,” Thomson said, “but other people have got to pick it up because those guys can’t stay hot all year.”
The Phillies and Pirates traded single runs in the first and third innings and each scored twice in the fourth. The game remained tied until the Pirates loaded the bases on Jordan Romano with no outs in the bottom of the ninth and walked the Phillies off with a Nick Gonzales sac fly to deep left field.
It was Romano’s third straight appearance allowing a run and second straight loss. He is 0-3 with a 7.71 ERA. There was some bad luck involved Friday night but he was uninterested in using it as an excuse. The Pirates started the inning with two softly-hit bloop singles and the biggest play was Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s bunt. He executed a perfect sacrifice down the third-base line and Romano let it roll because it appeared to be moving toward foul ground. At the last second, it took a sudden right turn on the lip of the infield and remained fair.
“For sure,” Romano said of the misfortune, “but bottom line, I’ve just got to be better. I’ve got to pitch better. I got a little bad luck but that’s baseball, other guys are getting through it. I’m not. Team’s scuffling a little bit and I need to step up. It didn’t happen.
“That bunt, it was like almost all the way foul and kinda just came right back. I’ve never had a bunt like that, not like that.”
His voice trailed off. It’s been a frustrating two months for Romano and a frustrating week for the 37-26 Phillies. The scuffling lineup draws Paul Skenes on Sunday so a win in the middle game would go a long way.
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