The Philadelphia Phillies lost the opener of a three game series at Target Field to the host Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night.
This is how bad it has gotten. Even when the Phillies score runs in double digits, they can’t win. Even when they play the team with the worst record in Major League Baseball, they can’t win.
Anyone who has been watching the Fadin’ Phils over the last month knows that it is bad. But it is really beginning to sink in, just how bad it really is these days.
The Phillies dropped their eighth game in a row tonight. Last year’s team, which finished with the worst record in baseball, never lost more than six in a row.
Oh, and all the big mouths who were so quick to put down talk of the 2016 Phillies tanking the season? Shut up now. Nowhere to be found.
The Phillies management knew over the off-season that this team could not possibly compete without a major infusion of talent.
We can argue the merits of what they did to remedy that, but the fact is that they didn’t do nearly enough to avoid another big losing season. Tank.
The host Minnesota Twins outscored the Phillies tonight by a 14-10 score at Target Field in Minneapolis in the opener of a three game Interleague series.
Twins’ catcher Kurt Suzuki was a one-man wrecking crew, going 4-5 including his 5th home run of the season. Suzuki drove in six runs on the night hitting out of the eighth spot in the Minnesota batting order.
Brian Dozier went 3-5 with two runs and two RBI and Trevor Plouffe 2-5 with two runs and two RBI from the more traditional run-producing four and five spots in the order.
The Phillies hit four home runs on the night, and yet it still wasn’t enough. Those longballs came off the bats of Peter Bourjos, Tommy Joseph, Cameron Rupp, and Maikel Franco.
But it was on the mound where the Phillies lost this one. Aaron Nola failed to reach the 5th inning for a third consecutive outing. He allowed seven earned runs on seven hits while walking three over just three innings.
The Phillies didn’t receive much help from their bullpen once Nola left, with both Brett Oberholtzer and David Hernandez yielding three runs.
So that’s eight losses in a row, 12 out of 13, and 6-25 since their mid-May high water mark. Meanwhile, the last place team in the NL East, the Atlanta Braves, have won six in a row. The Phils lead over Atlanta is now down to just five games for the basement.