Alec Bohm’s error, José Alvarado’s wildness dooms Phillies in 7-5 loss to Brewers

MILWAUKEE — Alec Bohm bent at the waist and put his hands on his knees. Three runners zoomed around him and scored before the Phillies were able to retrieve the ground ball that had gotten by him and scooted into left field in the eighth inning.

Talk about a helpless feeling.

And a gut-punch loss.

“Pretty easy play, and I messed it up,” Bohm said late Friday night after the Phillies fell, 7-5, to the Brewers in the opener of a three-game series between postseason hopefuls. “Simple as that.”

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Look, it happens. That it felt so shocking is a reflection of Bohm’s improvement as a defender since the outset of last season. It was only his ninth error, his fourth at third base. He won’t win a Gold Glove, but he has answered for his ability to stay at the position.

Or maybe Bohm’s backhand flub of Owen Miller’s routine two-out grounder with the bases loaded was such a stunner because of what came before it. Trea Turner swatted another three-run homer, this one against Brewers closer Devin Williams’ airbender changeup, to open a two-run lead in the top of the eighth.

But the real takeaway from a hard-to-take loss involved the state of the Phillies’ bullpen. Two days after Craig Kimbrel coughed up a ninth-inning lead at home to the Angels, José Alvarado faced five Brewers batters and got only one out.

“Mal día,” Alvarado said in Spanish, and no translation was needed.

Bad day.

Alvarado inherited a 5-3 lead after Turner’s homer and promptly loaded the bases on two hits and a walk. He walked Tyrone Taylor to force in a run before being lifted for Jeff Hoffman, who struck out Willy Adames before Miller’s grounder and Bohm’s blunder.

“I was running to [tag] the bag, but I missed the ball and lost us the game,” Bohm said. “Come back tomorrow.”

It marked Alvarado’s fifth appearance since returning from a 46-day absence because of elbow inflammation. He’s taken two turns on the injured list with the same issue.

And although he might have been the most dominant reliever in baseball before he got injured, he doesn’t look nearly as sharp since he’s been back. For one thing, he isn’t throwing as many cutters, a pitch that has been central to his success.

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“Honestly, I’m not going to lie to you, I’m not going to tell you that I feel the same as I did at the beginning of the season,” Alvarado said through a team interpreter. “But I’m happy that the velocity is coming back, the aggressiveness is there. Maybe a way to look at it is just a bad start to the series.”

But what if it’s more than that? What if the bullpen, the Phillies’ most consistent strength since the beginning of the season, is now a concern?

“We’re just going through a little bit of a spurt here, but I think they’re going to bounce back,” manager Rob Thomson said. “That’s a tough group down there. They’ve got good stuff. Good stuff usually plays and it usually wins, so I’m not overly concerned about that.”

Thomson’s assessment of Alvarado: “He just didn’t throw many strikes. Just couldn’t find the strike zone. He’s got to get a feel for his cutter. Just doesn’t have it right now. He’s got to drive the fastball through the zone. He gets that, he’s tough to hit.”

Alvarado and Seranthony Domínguez, in particular, are essential to the bullpen’s success down the stretch. Both missed time earlier in the season, forcing Kimbrel and lefty Gregory Soto to carry a heavy workload. Domínguez is still finding his groove, too.

But after a power-packed August in which the Phillies piled up 17 wins by slugging 59 homers, a monthly club record, September is about more than merely sorting out the bullpen. It’s about locking down the top wild card in the National League and home field in the best-of-three wild-card series.

Losing to the Brewers — and slipping to 33-34 away from Citizens Bank Park — only reinforced that point.

Turner slugged his fifth homer in four games, a power surge that is matched only by his star turn for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. He also extended his hitting streak to 12 games.

In his last 25 games, Turner is 36-for-100 (.360) with nine doubles, one triple, 10 homers, 29 RBIs, and 22 runs. He has a .398 on-base percentage and is slugging .770.

“He’s got a lot of confidence right now,” Thomson said. “He’s backing the ball up, he’s using the whole field, he’s not chasing as much. I just think he’s on a roll right now. He’s in one of those grooves.”

For six innings, the game was a duel between Wheeler and Brewers starter Freddy Peralta.

Peralta blinked first, giving up a leadoff homer to Kyle Schwarber. But he allowed only one hit thereafter and struck out 10 batters.

Wheeler, meanwhile, made one mistake: a sweeper stayed belt-high and over the plate instead of diving down and away, as catcher J.T. Realmuto expected it would. Adames hit it for a three-run homer to give the Brewers a 3-1 lead.

“Just didn’t get it all the way out to the outside corner like I wanted it to,” Wheeler said. “He got me right there.”

Otherwise, Wheeler became the third Phillies pitcher since 1900 to post back-to-back 10-strikeout, no-walk games, joining Cole Hamels in 2010 and Curt Schilling in 1996.