PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The last pitch Jes\u00fas Luzardo threw Friday was a 2-0 sinker, slipping down the middle.<\/p>\n
The goal was to get back in the count. Instead, James McCann sent the pitch toward the right-field warning track, two runners soared around third to home, and manager Rob Thomson marched toward the mound. Six days removed from an 11-strikeout gem in Colorado, Luzardo did not make it out of the fifth inning in his third start of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was falling behind too much all game,\u201d Luzardo said. \u201cI felt like I was 2-0 on every guy, which is just unacceptable, and eventually it caught up to me in the fifth.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 4-0 lead established minutes into the first inning became a 5-4 game when matters spiraled for Luzardo in the fifth. The no-hitter through four innings was quickly forgotten, turning into a five-hit, five-run outing for the lefty. And the Philadelphia Phillies, now 6-7, fell 5-4 to the Arizona Diamondbacks in their first game back at Citizens Bank Park since a season-opening homestand as Luzardo faltered and hitters struck out 16 times.<\/p>\n
The problem, Luzardo felt, was in falling behind. He had trouble landing in the zone when it mattered, throwing 86 pitches but 51 for strikes. Last weekend in Colorado, that figure was 99 pitches, 72 for strikes.<\/p>\n
The struggles had little to do with his arsenal or Arizona\u2019s righty-heavy lineup, Luzardo said. He\u2019s thrown his sinker, which was his least-used pitch against righties last season, more often this year. He threw 17 total Friday \u2014 the third most he\u2019s thrown in a start the last four years and the highest percentage of sinkers he\u2019s thrown in a start in that same span.<\/p>\n
Right-handed batters recorded three hits off sinkers in the fifth inning. But it was not so much the pitch as the timing. The first sinker taken for a hit came on a 1-0 count. The second was a first-pitch bunt, which Alec Bohm did not properly field, that loaded the bases. That was not Luzardo\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we need to get an out right there, you know?\u201d Thomson said. \u201cWe had a four-run lead. We need to come and get the ball, be aggressive and get an out at first base.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final sinker was that pitch to McCann. Luzardo\u2019s goal was to throw a strike and get himself back in the count. It did not pan out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem today was just falling behind, just not throwing the off-speeds for strike, even the sinker, not throwing it for strike early,\u201d Luzardo said.<\/p>\n
Luzardo has a 6.23 ERA through three starts, which is really the product of Friday\u2019s outing and a six-run (five via homer) outing March 29. What happened in Colorado \u2014 six-plus innings of one-run baseball \u2014 is exactly what Luzardo can be. Instead, there is still the question of what exactly went wrong in the starts that sandwiched a dominant day in Denver.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first (start) was a little louder contact,\u201d Luzardo said. \u201cStuff was still good. Today was more so falling behind, a lot of self-inflicted stuff. So I think (the starts are) separate. Obviously frustrating, both of them. There\u2019s a lot positive from all three of the starts so far, but just need to, at the end of the day, get in the zone more.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it did not help that an offense seemingly enjoying another cathartic outing went quiet yet again. Four runs scored just minutes into Friday\u2019s game, then came a Diamondbacks mound visit. And Michael Soroka and Arizona\u2019s righty-only bullpen stifled the Phillies from there \u2014 with the exception of Justin Crawford\u2019s two-out triple in the ninth, bringing the crowd back to its feet and reigniting a semblance of optimism. Trea Turner flied out four pitches later, and that was that.<\/p>\n
The Phillies have scored the fewest runs (46) and recorded the lowest OPS (.662) in a season\u2019s first 13 games since 2016. And the refrain remains the same: There is no panic. These things will come.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s early, man,\u201d Brandon Marsh, who homered in the first, said.<\/p>\n
It is April. But the lineup is chilly, and any slipups from starting pitchers are proving hard to overcome. So the Phillies descended the dugout stairs and headed for the clubhouse, no handshakes and high-fives, waiting for a chance to do it all over in 16 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The last pitch Jes\u00fas Luzardo threw Friday was a 2-0 sinker, slipping down the middle. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-673200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116385684080009673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}