Phillies ready to ‘turn the page’ after being swept by Rangers in opening series

The Phillies depart Texas perhaps encouraged by Bailey Falter's pitching but plagued by a sputtering offense.

Published April 2, 2023, 9:58 p.m. ET

ARLINGTON, Texas — In his first start of the season, it was not Aaron Nola, nor Zack Wheeler, who gave the Phillies the best chance to win a game against the Texas Rangers. It was Bailey Falter, a pitcher who was battling for a spot on the 26-man roster just a month ago.

It was not Nola, nor Wheeler, but Falter who gave the Phillies the length they badly needed on Sunday night, after their two workhorses were unable to pitch deep in Games 1 and 2. The left-hander threw 5⅓ innings in Sunday’s 2-1 loss. They weren’t perfect innings. Falter allowed some hard contact. He gave up seven hits and two earned runs — one of them a home run, to Rangers third baseman Josh Jung. But even then, Falter bounced back.

After Jung’s homer in the second inning, he retired his next three batters, on a groundout, a flyout and a groundout. After allowing a single to start the third inning, he retired his next three batters, again: flyout, lineout, groundout. He retired all three in the fourth inning, allowed two hits in the fifth inning, one of them an RBI single by Marcus Semien, and departed in the sixth inning, after allowing a single to Corey Seager, and inducing a groundout that moved him to second base.

“It was huge,” Thomson said of Falter’s performance. “We got two short starts last two [games] and ran through our bullpen on both nights ,so that was good. We should have pretty much everybody ready to go tomorrow.”

The Phillies were unable to capitalize on it. With the loss Sunday night, they have yet to win a game this season. It wasn’t as abysmal as their losses on Thursday (11-7), or Saturday (16-3), but perhaps slightly more frustrating because Falter put them well within reach. The Phillies were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and grounded into three double plays.

Part of this was because they ran out a different lineup. With lefty Martin Perez on the mound, Thomson decided to give recently acquired right-handed hitter Cristian Pache a start in center field. Pache, who is a work in progress offensively, went 0-for-3 with one strikeout. In the second inning, with Edmundo Sosa on second base and Bryson Stott on first, he grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Pache wasn’t alone. There were other opportunities that were squandered. In the fourth inning, with runners on first and third with no outs, Josh Harrison grounded into another double play that plated the Phillies’ lone run. Sosa and Stott followed with singles to put runners on first and second, but Pache struck out.

The closest the Phillies got to taking a lead came in the fifth, when Kyle Schwarber hit a ball 416 feet, only to see it caught by Adolis Garcia at the center field wall. If the ball had traveled just a few feet — or inches — further, it would have scored two runs.

The Phillies have now lost 12 straight games to the Rangers. It’s their longest active losing streak against any major league team. Now they head to New York to face the Yankees in the start of a three-game set Monday night. It’s safe to say they’ll be happy to get out of Texas.

“Definitely not the way we imagined it going, getting swept,” said Schwarber. “Thank goodness we don’t play the Cubs tomorrow … we got swept by them too last year. They play well. You’ve got to tip your hat to them. First game, they were able to come back. Second game, they kind of took advantage of some things. Offensively, they tacked on. And then today, they played great defense.

“I don’t think that we can look at this and try to drastically change things. It’s the first part of the season, first three games. So not the way we wanted to start, but we’ve got to show up tomorrow. We’ve got a really good team that we’re playing tomorrow. We’ve got to be able to have a short memory, put it behind us. I don’t think we need to change a lot about today, just need to be able to turn the page and get ready for tomorrow.”