PHILADELPHIA — The opening-series salvo from the Phillies lineup left much to be desired against the Rangers this weekend.
Saturday brought one hit for the first 8.2 innings, the team celebrating the reprieve of Jacob deGrom scratching from his start by being summarily shut down by a middling lefty in Jacob Latz.
Sunday, it took an 80-foot dribbler from Justin Crawford leading off the sixth for the Phillies’ first base hit. Eight hits in two games didn’t cut it, ending the opening series with an 8-3 loss to Texas.
Three games is a minuscule sample to divine structural deficiencies. But it’s not the most inspiring of beginnings.
“We’ve got to get something going earlier in games,” manager Rob Thomson said. “Obviously, I think everybody in the lineup is trying to get off to a little bit of a good start, maybe a little bit anxious. They’ll settle in.”
Early in the season though it may be, there has been a dearth of quality at-bats in clutch moments. A tally of 5-for-16 with runners in scoring position the last two games isn’t dire. But there have been too few opportunities, and the ones that have come been too late.
“That first game, we gave Sanchy (Cristopher Sanchez) an early lead and kept rolling from there, but the last two games have just been fighting from behind, so just get it going a little bit earlier in the game,” Trea Turner said. “I just feel like just getting back into the rhythm of things, playing every day, it’ll come.”
Down 3-0 in the fifth inning Saturday, Turner looked silly with the bases loaded, swinging through three straight Cole Winn deliveries in striking out. Challenge conundrum notwithstanding, Kyle Schwarber’s strikeout looking against Tyler Alexander in the 10th wasn’t what the moment called for in the 5-4 loss on Saturday.
Sunday, with the bases loaded in 6-0 game, the Phillies needed more from Bryce Harper than a whiff off a tiring MacKenzie Gore. It helped limit the rally to just two runs, and made the double play that Turner pounded into with two on in the seventh in what was then a Zach Pop-aided 8-2 deficit more academic.
Turner hit into two double plays Sunday after just 11 all of last season.
“I think he’s trying to get off to a good start, and they’re pitching him tough, pitching below the zone,” Thomson said.
“I think everybody wants to get off to a good start, but sometimes it doesn’t happen,” Turner said. “And you can learn from each and every game. I don’t think the at-bats have been that bad. Just feels like we get it going a little late.”
Aaron Nola on Saturday was good enough to keep his team in the game. Two home run balls and three earned runs in five innings is a median effort for him this season. Six innings and six earned runs for Jesus Luzardo on Sunday is considerably less than. But with no hits on the board by the time he was done for the day, it sort of didn’t matter.
In both games, the Phillies waited until starters were out of the game to work counts and string together quality at-bats, by which point both games proved out of reach. Thomson was happy about drawing eight walks on Sunday, and 21 strikeouts in 19 innings against a so-so Texas staff is not great but not worrying.
It still wasn’t enough to win a series, though.
“Personally, I think they’re OK, three games in,” Harper said of the at-bats. “Obviously not the start we wanted to have in a weekend. But we’ll get there.”