Phillies pitching tandem of Cristopher Sánchez-Michael Lorenzen can’t stop Braves in a 9-3 loss

ATLANTA — In the same way it seemed like virtually everything went right for the Phillies on Monday night, it seemed like virtually everything went wrong them in Tuesday’s 9-3 loss to the Braves. A few hours before the game, manager Rob Thomson said he’d like to use just two pitchers, Cristopher Sánchez and Michael Lorenzen, in the second game of this final regular-season series against the Braves. Sánchez only pitched four innings. Lorenzen entered in the fifth and could only record one out. By the end of the night, Thomson had used four relievers.

Sánchez (2-5), who had pitched well against the Braves last week, struggled this time. The Braves collected three runs on seven hits with one walk and two strikeouts, and one home run, a solo shot from Ronald Acuña Jr. that he hit on the first pitch he saw from Sanchez.

Thomson said after the game that the plan was to have Sánchez go two turns through the order. He pitched a career-high eight innings against the Braves in his start last week, and the Phillies have some concerns about his workload. They also wanted to see how he would look in a tandem with Lorenzen.

“Not quite [as sharp],” Thomson said of Sánchez. “I thought he was OK, though. Our plan going into the game was twice through the lineup, and then we go to Michael, and Michael just didn’t have it tonight, obviously. But I thought [Sánchez] was OK. They made some adjustments on him. I thought the changeup was OK. Less first-pitch strikes than the last time. But I thought he was OK.”

Lorenzen, who was pitching in relief for the first time since 2021, hit a new low on Tuesday. After back-to-back singles by Acuña and Ozzie Albies, Lorenzen issued consecutive walks to Austin Riley and Matt Olson (although, it should be noted that the final pitch of Riley’s 10-pitch at-bat was a strike that was mistakenly called a ball). Two more runs scored on Marcell Ozuna’s double before he loaded the bases again. Orlando Arcia drove in one last run with a sacrifice fly.

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After Lorenzen struggled to induce swing and a miss as a starter, there was hope that his stuff would play out of the bullpen. But he was unable to finish batters with two strikes, a problem that has plagued him all year. His velocity ticked up slightly, but not enough to get batters to swing. He was hoping to go four innings, but instead, he couldn’t get through one.

When asked if he feels like he feels extra urgency to get right with only 11 games left in the season, Lorenzen said he always feels urgency.

“There’s never sit back,” he said. “I don’t like not being good. It’s not something I do well with. So I don’t care if it’s the first month of the season or the situation we’re in now.”

It has been a hard few weeks for him. Lorenzen pitches to contact, which can make his numbers fluctuate wildly from month to month. Right now, he is in a down period. When he was acquired by the Phillies, he’d come off a month of July in which he posted a 1.14 ERA. He has a 9.23 ERA since his Aug. 9 no-hitter.

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It’s not obvious to him, or to his manager, why the swing and miss has gone down. And it’s not clear, to him, if it’s going to come back if he pitches in shorter outings.

“We’ll see,” Lorenzen said. “It’s just ... we’ll see. I have no idea. I wish I could tell you yeah.”

Thomson is more confident.

“He’s a veteran,” Thomson said. “And I think getting him used to coming out of the bullpen might take an outing or two. But I think it’s in there.”

Things didn’t get much easier for the Phillies from there. Yunior Marte entered in relief of Lorenzen and gave up Acuña’s second home run in the sixth. Ozuna also added another RBI single during Marte’s 1⅔ innings. In all, he allowed two runs on three hits with a walk and three strikeouts.

It didn’t help that Spencer Strider was pitching like his dominant self again, and not the version that the Phillies got in last year’s National League Division Series. Strider allowed just one hit through his first five innings. He didn’t run into trouble until the sixth, and it might’ve just been because he was sitting for longer than expected, as Lorenzen labored through the fifth.

Johan Rojas and Kyle Schwarber hit back-to-back singles in the sixth, and Bryce Harper drove them in with a three-run home run. But that was the extent of the Phillies’ offensive damage for the night. They didn’t record a hit after Harper’s home run and struck out 14 times.

“He was good,” Thomson said of Strider. “He was on his game tonight.”

The Phillies are now 82-69. They hold a 2½-game lead on the Diamondbacks for the top wild-card spot.