The Phillies lost a game to the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Friday, April 12 by the score of 5-2. This sounds straightforward enough for an early season game which matched a hot Pirates team against a struggling Phillies nine. If you saw the game from the stands, however, as I did, you were left wondering how the Pirates scored any runs at all. The Pirates tallied their runs in some of the most unusual ways possible, and very little of it had to do with them hitting hard line drives around the park and a lot of it had to do with Phillies ineptitude.
In the top of the second inning, Phillies starter Christopher Sanchez walked Pirates Andrew McCutheon with one out. He then struck out Oneil Cruz. With two out, Michael A. Taylor hit an easy high chopper back to the mound. Sanchez juggled the ball, then dropped it, then went to pick it up and dropped it again. By this time Taylor was safe at first on an error. Instead of being out of the inning, Sanchez now had two on and two out. He proceeded to walk the next two batters to force in a run.
In the fourth inning, the Pirates had two men on and two men out, when Connor Joe bounced an easy ground ball to short. As Trea Turner prepared to field the ball, his feet went out from under him, he sprawled on the ground, and the ball bounced into left field to score the Pirates second run.
The Phillies got one run back on a Brandon Marsh double and Bryson Stott single in the fifth. In the seventh, however, Yunior Marte relieved Sanchez and the Pirates scored another weird run. With one out and one on, Whit Merrifield dropped a line drive off the bat of Joe (it was ruled, erroneously, I think, a hit), to put runners on first and second. Bryan Reynolds hit a hard one hopper to Stott at second, but the Phillies were unable to turn the double play. Then, with one out and runners on second and third, Marte threw a called third strike past Ke’Bryan Hayes, but the 98-mph sinker handcuffed J. T. Realmuto and ricocheted off his wrist to the backstop, allowing Henry Davis to score. Apparently, Realmuto was expecting a slider.
In the eighth inning, with Ricardo Pinto now pitching, Jared Triolo got on base on a dribbler up the third base line that Alec Bohm could not make a play on. Henry Davis drove him in on a sharp double to left and then scored himself on a Reynolds single. That was the last Pirates run, and the only one of the five that scored without an assist by some shaky Phillies defensive play.
The Phillies got one run back in the eighth, but the game ended 5-2 Buccos. It was the kind of loss that drives a manager, not to mention a teams’ fans, crazy. If the Phillies had just managed some average level defense, this would have been a winnable game.
The Phillies have worked hard to improve their defense this year. Defense has been a glaring weakness for several seasons. This year with Bryce Harper taking over first base, Johan Rojas in center, Marsh in leftfield, and Kyle Schwarber acting solely as a designated hitter, the defense certainly should be better. The team will need better defense than they showed on this funky Friday night, if they hope to contend for a National Legue pennant once again.
I, too, was at the game and this story captures both the essence of that game and the frustration that comes with shoddy defense from a professional big-league team. All teams have bad days but give us a break.