After dominating the Baltimore Orioles in the first two games of the series, the Phillies seemed primed to accomplish something they haven’t done in almost two months: Sweep a series. Instead, the bats were mostly silent, and Ranger Suarez had a bad fourth inning, allowing the Orioles to salvage the series finale by a score of 5-1.
Ranger Suarez started the game and did a pretty good Aaron Nola impression. He got through the first three innings unscathed, but then quickly unraveled in the fourth. The first three batters got base hits to make it 1-0, and then he gave up a home run to Coby Mayo to make it 4-0.
Phillies pitching has had a bad habit lately of giving up multi-run homers to guys who aren’t necessarily known for hitting a lot of home runs.
Suarez largely settled down after that, but the damage was done because the Phillies offense wasn’t having a great day. They used to dominate Trevor Rogers when he was on the Marlins, but the lefthander was solid on Wednesday afternoon, limiting them to one run in six innings.
Trea Turner has been quiet of late, but he had a good game, going 3-4 with a walk, including a double and a triple. Unfortunately, the batters behind him who had been hot – Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper – had bad days. Harper was 1-4, and Schwarber went 0-4 with three strikeouts and grounded into a double play.
It looked like the Phillies might get back into the game in the fifth when Weston Wilson led off with a walk, Rafael Marchan singled, and Turner drove in a run with a double. But a Schwarber strikeout, a Harper fielder’s choice, and a Nick Castellanos groundout ended the threat.
Suarez probably was kept in an inning too long, as he gave up an insurance run in the seventh, but with the offense unable to mount much of a threat it didn’t matter. The Orioles bullpen held the Phillies scoreless over the final three innings.
The Phillies will have Thursday off before travelling to Texas for a weekend series against the Rangers. Hopefully the Phillies can find a way to win two of the games, because asking them to win all three seems to be beyond this team’s capabilities at this time.