Phillies Remain Winless in Openers and Season

On Friday afternoon, the Philadelphia Phillies lost their fourth straight game to open the 2016 season.

It was the same formula on display at Citi Field in Queens during yesterday’s home opener for the defending National League champion New York Mets that we saw earlier in the week in Cincinnati, an unproductive offense and a bullpen that implodes on itself.

The formula won’t prove out in every single one of the next 158 games, but it is the basic nature of this team as currently constructed. Until there are further major personnel changes in the lineup, and until an effective combination is found out in the bullpen, these will be the Phillies results.

Starting pitching was mostly a neutral factor for the Phils on the afternoon. Jerad Eickhoff, the wunderkind of 2015 who is a little behind the others in the rotation due to a spring injury, lasted five innings. He allowed a pair of earned runs on five hits, walking two and striking out three. His command and control were obviously a bit rusty, as 39 of his 87 pitches went for balls.

In the bottom of the 2nd, the hosts jumped on top 1-0 thanks to some sloppy Phillies defense, but it could have been far worse. Eickhoff hit Michael Conforto leading off the frame. Then came the sloppiness.

Asdrubel Cabrera dribbled what appeared to be a tailor-made doubleplay ball back at the Phils’ pitcher, who fielded and turned, firing to shortstop Freddy Galvis. However, Galvis failed to hold on to the throw. Not only would there be no doubleplay, but now both runners were safe. When Eickhoff walked the following batter on four pitches, the Mets had the bases loaded and nobody out.

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He then induced Mets’ starter Jacob deGrom to hit into a 4-3 ground out, with Conforto coming home to score the games first run on the play. Still with two runners on the bags, Eickhoff induced Curtis Granderson to pop out and David Wright to ground out, both to 3rd base, keeping the deficit at just that 1-0 score.

In the end, it wouldn’t be Eickhoff who cost the Phillies this game. He left in the 6th inning with the club trailing by just 3-1. To that point the issue was the popgun offense that couldn’t put anything together against deGrom.

The Phillies did briefly tie the game in the top of the 6th thanks to Eickhoff himself. The Phils pitcher led off with a double, moved to 3rd on a ground out, and came in to score on a two-out RBI single off the bat of Odubel Herrera.

However, the base running may have cost Eickhoff the remainder of his stamina. Having allowed just two hits to that point, he would yield knocks to each of the first three Mets batters to start the home 6th inning. Lucas Duda started it with a double. He scored on a Neil Walker single to center that put New York back on top by 2-1. When Conforto followed with yet another double, scoring Walker, that was the end for Eickhoff.

Phillies’ skipper Pete Mackanin then turned to his bullpen, the source of so much frustration in blowing a pair of games at Cincinnati. This time they came through, with Dalier Hinojosa retiring the first two batters, and then Daniel Stumpf wrapping up the inning with the Phils still down by just that 3-1 margin.

It would be the following frame that would prove the major difference-maker in this contest. On came lefty reliever James Russell, out went any shot the Phils had at a rally. After retiring the leadoff man, Russell walked two batters around a single to load the bases with Metropolitans once again.

The Mets then did what the Phillies are largely incapable of doing with their current offensive attack, they produced with those runners in scoring position. Another RBI single by Walker was followed by a two-run single off the bat of Conforto that made it a 6-1 game.

Mackanin, and any Phillies fans watching live or at home on their TV sets, had seen enough of Russell. The manager made the call to the pen for erstwhile closer David Hernandez, who failed again to seize an opportunity. Hernandez allowed a two-out RBI single to former Phillies’ prospect catcher Travis d’Arnaud, and it was a 7-1 Mets blowout lead.

There was a bit of good news for the Phillies in that frame, as it was announced that deGrom would have to leave with a strained lat muscle in his back. The injury did not appear serious, and he was supposedly removed for simple precautionary reasons with the big lead on a cold day in his first start of a long season. He allowed just one earned run on five hits while striking out six and walking none over six innings of work.

The Phillies would tack on a meaningless run in the top of the 8th when Peter Bourjos reached on a one-out error by Wright. That play was followed by consecutive singles from Galvis and Cesar Hernandez, the latter scoring Bourjos with the run that made it a 7-2 final score.

Thanks to Russell and Hernandez’ poor 7th inning performance, the Phillies bullpen line got even uglier on the 2016 season: 15 earned runs and 18 hits allowed over 10.2 innings with a 10/8 K:BB ratio.

In yesterday’s series preview, I called the Phillies “Keys to Winning the Series” as effective relief pitching and production from Ryan Howard. The Big Piece went 0-3 with a strikeout, leaving three men on base. And the bullpen, well, you read it already.

The Phillies are now 0-4 in what we all knew was going to be a long season. But the start has been particularly ugly and disheartening. The club really needs to do something over these next couple of days in the Big Apple to spur some greater fan interest ahead of Monday’s scheduled home opener. In that one, the club hopes to finally get this ‘Opening Day’ thing right in what will be their third shot at it this season.

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