Phillies Jeanmar Gomez Blows Another One
By Matt Veasey
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | |
| Pirates | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| Phillies | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
The Philadelphia Phillies dropped the second game of a four-game series to the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park.
The visiting Pittsburgh Pirates pulled out a 9th inning come-from-behind 5-3 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday night.
Sean Rodriguez, sent up by Bucs’ skipper Clint Hurdle as a pinch-hitter for reliever Felipe Rivero with two on and nobody out, ripped a line drive three-run homer off Phils’ closer Jeanmar Gomez to supply the winning margin.
For Gomez (3-4), the blown save and loss continued a streak of frustrations and failures from the pitcher who had spent such a large portion of the season supplying the Fightin’ Phils with unexpected success in the closer role.
Gomez now has a 12.60 ERA in five official innings across seven September appearances. He has allowed a .407 opponent’s batting average in that span, with 11 hits allowed. This was his second blown Save of the month without retiring a batter.
The Phillies had built a 3-2 lead into that 9th inning, scratching out single runs in both the bottom of the 4th and 6th frames on Ryan Howard batted balls that were hits in neither instance.
In the 4th, a Howard grounder was flubbed by Pirates’ 2nd baseman Adam Frazier, allowing Roman Quinn to score a run that tied the game at 1-1 at that point.
In the 6th, Howard grounded into a force out, with Cesar Hernandez racing home on the play with the go-ahead run, putting the Phillies on top by a 2-1 score.
The Bucs had struck first in the top of the 1st inning when Frazier singled off Phillies starter Alec Asher to score Jordy Mercer.
Asher pitched his second straight solid outing since being promoted from Triple-A. He allowed just two earned runs on four hits over 6.1 innings, striking out four and walking three batters.
Pittsburgh tied it at 2-2 in the top of the 7th when Asher walked both Jung Ho Kang and Matt Joyce with one out. That ended his night, with Michael Mariot coming on in relief.
Mariot walked the first batter that he faced, Francisco Cervelli, to load the bases. Then with Mercer at the plate, Mariot uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Kang to race home with the tying run.
The game remained tied into the bottom of the 8th when Quinn worked a one-out walk off Rivero. A base hit by Maikel Franco and walk to Tommy Joseph then loaded the bases.
With a chance to open the game up, the Phillies largely blew the opportunity. Still, Freddy Galvis‘ sac fly to center field allowed Quinn to score the go-ahead run, and the Phillies took their 3-2 lead into the fateful final frame.
Yet another poor perfomance from Gomez only reiterates what I wrote a couple of weeks back: the ride is over. The Phillies have a better option, and should switch to using Hector Neris in the closer role.
Related Story: Phillies Should Switch Closer from Gomez to Neris
“That’s a shame to lose that game, the way the guys hung in there and battled,” Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said per MLB.com contributors. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot. It was a good game for eight innings — until the ninth.”