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<\/p>\nPHILADELPHIA \u2014 When the photos of Sunday\u2019s starting pitchers came across the scoreboard pregame at Citizens Bank Park, Andrew Painter was not pictured. Instead, Zach Pop\u2019s headshot was displayed.<\/p>\n
The Phillies relayed a message shortly after: Painter had been scratched from his third career start with a migraine. Ten minutes later, he walked through right field to the bullpen. That was about when Painter, who has a history of migraines, began to feel somewhat better after taking medicine that morning. He said he felt 100 percent by the third inning, ultimately taking the mound and pitching five innings of one-run baseball against the Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know the extent of how long I was going to be able to go out, how good I was feeling,\u201d Painter said. \u201cBut I wanted to go out there and at least get a couple innings to take that off the bullpen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He managed more than that, striking out seven and throwing 80 pitches over five innings. It was an excellent turnaround after a difficult second outing, coming on a day when little went to plan for the Phillies in a 4-3 loss.<\/p>\n
Painter threw up and felt pressure in his head in the morning, leaving Pop to pitch the first two innings. Catcher J.T. Realmuto, who was slated to play, took the day off after a foul ball to the right foot the night before. The bullpen gave up two runs in the eighth to erase a two-run lead. And poor judgment on the basepaths was especially costly.<\/p>\n
First there was Bryce Harper trying to stretch a single rolling into right center into a double in the fourth. \u201cMost balls I hit in that spot,\u201d Harper said, \u201cI try to get (to second).\u201d The throw reached second base about one second before Harper did. He was out.<\/p>\n
The Phillies had runners on first and third with no outs in the sixth and eighth, and failed to score both times.<\/p>\n
In the sixth, Harper was thrown out between third and home on an infield grounder. The ball was quickly sent home and then to the third baseman to tag out Harper. Breaking for home was the right move, manager Rob Thomson felt, because there might have been a double play at first and second otherwise.<\/p>\n
The most egregious example came when the Phillies were down by one with runners on the corners in the eighth, with Adolis Garc\u00eda batting in a 3-1 count.<\/p>\n
Brandon Marsh, who intended to steal second, seemingly did not look home after the pitch was thrown. He was charging toward the base, head down, and seemed to realize the ball was quickly dropping behind him just as he touched second. By then it was too late for him to make up ground and return to first. What might have just been a popup turned into an inning-ending double play when Marsh was thrown out at first.<\/p>\n
Marsh left the clubhouse before reporters entered after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust bad baseball,\u201d Harper said.\u201cHad an opportunity right there, and didn\u2019t do the things we needed to do to come through in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Thomson: \u201cOn your third step, you should peek. I haven\u2019t looked at the tape, but he lost the ball. Three-one count, they were giving us second base and we were also in double-play depth. So, the ball\u2019s on the ground, we score and tie the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Andrew Painter didn\u2019t pitch until the third because of migraines, but held the Diamondbacks to one run over five innings. (Hunter Martin \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The starting pitching has been somewhat up-and-down to start the season. But, in a game where Painter delivered despite illness hours earlier, the Phillies\u2019 offense maintained its trend of scoring in just a handful of innings. All three runs and five of their 10 hits came in the sixth. They entered Sunday with the fifth-fewest runs scored of any team this season (50). In their last 46 innings, they have scored in only three.<\/p>\n
And the Phillies went 3-for-9 with runners in scoring position Sunday, remaining one of the worst teams in the majors in this category. Entering Sunday, they were slashing .209\/.321\/.382 in 131 plate appearances with RISP. It\u2019s even worse with two outs and RISP: .161\/.288\/.232.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the traffic, at least today, was out there,\u201d Trea Turner said. \u201cWe had some guys on base, and just need to be more consistent, have a little bit better at-bats, more team at-bats, moving guys around. Not that we\u2019re not trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ingredients are there. Fifteen games in, the Phillies are still figuring out how to put it all together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 When the photos of Sunday\u2019s starting pitchers came across the scoreboard pregame at Citizens Bank Park,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,5,38,4,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-674536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-diamondbacks","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-philadelphia-phillies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116395680261692347","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674536","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=674536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}