Bailey Falter stumbles as Phillies scuffle against the Braves

The story of this Phillies season, however it ends, cannot be written without mention of Bailey Falter and all that he represents.

What happened Saturday doesn’t change that.

OK, so Falter didn’t survive the fourth inning in a 6-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves. In the penultimate regular season home game, before 36,692 at Citizens Bank Park, he gave up 10 hits, including home runs to William Contreras and Michael Harris II, and trudged off the mound after dropping the Phillies down a six-run hole against the defending World Series champs, a team they may face in a best-of-three wild-card series less than two weeks from now.

Not great.

“Just didn’t do my job. That’s all it was,” Falter said after a three-game winning streak went kaput and the Phillies’ magic number to clinch a wild card was stuck on nine pending the Milwaukee Brewers’ outcome in Cincinnati. “Just made too many mistakes. Can’t happen.”

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But the Phillies, who can still win the series with a victory Sunday, almost certainly wouldn’t be holding a wild card if not for Falter. A human yo-yo between triple A and the majors, the lefty came up in late August to fill in for injured Zack Wheeler, went 4-0 with a 2.54 ERA in five starts, and compelled interim manager Rob Thomson to keep him in the rotation after Wheeler returned and dispatch veteran Noah Syndergaard to the bullpen.

And Falter wasn’t alone. Darick Hall came up from triple A and bashed nine homers in two months while Bryce Harper’s broken thumb healed. In Nick Castellanos’ absence, Matt Vierling, Nick Maton, and Dalton Guthrie stepped forward as a .300-hitting three-headed right fielder.

When was the last time that happened around here? Since 2019, the Phillies had a star-laden, top-heavy roster that caved in on itself because the foundation was weak. They lacked the organizational depth that supports the entire enterprise and collapsed down the stretch when the playoffs were within reach.

That said, Falter was far from sharp in his second consecutive start against the Braves. Some will say it was a reality check for the 25-year-old. Maybe so. But it also happens.

“Bailey’s been so good for us,” Thomson said. “It was just a rough outing for him. He made some bad pitches, I guess, that he normally doesn’t make.”

In the second inning, Falter gave up a leadoff double to Travis d’Arnaud and a two-out RBI single to rookie Vaughn Grissom. In the third, he allowed a hung a two-out, two-strike sinker to Contreras. In the fourth, he allowed four consecutive hits, including Harris’ two-run homer, then back-to-back RBI singles to Dansby Swanson and Contreras.

It marked Falter’s shortest start since May 27 against the New York Mets.

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Meanwhile, Braves starter Kyle Wright became the first 20-game winner in the majors this season and Atlanta’s first since Russ Ortiz in 2003. The Phillies didn’t get a hit against him until Rhys Hoskins’ one-out double in the sixth inning.

Yet somehow the Phillies came within about two feet of tying the game. After Harper interrupted a 3-for-32 slump with a two-run homer in the sixth inning, the Phillies put two runners on base with two out in the seventh. Hoskins hit a line drive that was just wide of scraping the bottom of the left-field foul pole against Braves lefty reliever A.J. Minter.

Two pitches later, Minter struck out Hoskins.

“I couldn’t imagine if that ball would’ve been out of the yard for Rhys,” Harper said. “The place would’ve been berserk. It was really cool to be able to get out there and see that crowd and be part of that.

“[The Braves] are a really good team. That’s kind of why they are where they are right now. To be able to go out there with a possibility to win a series against them [Sunday] is huge for us.”

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After back-to-back rough outings that he traced to a flaw in his mechanics, Seranthony Domínguez got a chance to work out his issues in a low-leverage situation and pitched a scoreless seventh inning.

Domínguez said this week that he believed his arm was “a little late” in relation to his body as he went through his delivery. As a result, he threw only 25 of 53 pitches for strikes in his previous two outings.

Things appeared to be in sync against the Braves. Domínguez retired the first two batters, including a strikeout of Marcell Ozuna on a slider, before Harris beat out an infield single and Grissom grounded into an inning-ending fielder’s choice. Domínguez threw a first-pitch strike to three of the four hitters and 11 strikes out of 15 pitches overall.

“His slider was a lot better,” Thomson said. “It was around the zone. He threw a couple of really good ones, and he used it. I thought it was really good.”

Thomson managed his 100th game since taking over after Joe Girardi got fired on June 3. With a 61-39 record, he’s the fifth in-season replacement since 1985 to win at least 60 of his first 100 games. The others: Colorado’s Jim Tracy (64-36 in 2009), the Mets’ Bud Harrelson (61-39 in 1990), Toronto’s Cito Gaston (62-38 in 1989), and the Yankees’ Billy Martin (62-38 in 1985).

“I’ve been watching managers for a long time now, so going into it, I kind of knew what was expected,” Thomson said. “I feel pretty good because we’ve won a lot of games. I feel kind of normal.”