Nick Castellanos hits a home run, but Phillies’ bats mostly silent against Brewers in 5-3 loss

Trailing by two runs with one out in the ninth inning Wednesday night, the Phillies got runners on the corners and an idea for how to tie the game.

Steal a base.

It was there for the taking. Like most closers, the Brewers’ Devin Williams tends to be slow to the plate. The Phillies’ scouting report confirmed as much. Opponents were 7-for-7 in steal attempts against him. It’s far easier to run on Williams than to hit his air-bending changeup.

So, with two strikes on Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott took off. It had to be a perfect throw to get him, and well, guess what.

“The catcher made a heck of a throw,” manager Rob Thomson said after the Phillies lost, 5-3, to snap a four-game winning streak and even the series with the finale set for 12:35 p.m. Thursday. “We thought that base could’ve been stolen.”

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It happens. The Phillies got five solid innings from No. 5 starter Cristopher Sánchez. They got a solo homer from Nick Castellanos and a game-tying two-run single from Kyle Schwarber. They even had a ninth-inning rally that stirred 33,753 paying customers at Citizens Bank Park.

But they didn’t catch a late-inning break. Brewers catcher William Contreras’ throw and a quick tag by second baseman Brice Turang resulted in only the second caught-stealing in 18 attempts for Stott — and the 11th loss in 38 games for the Phillies, who have dropped only one series at home since Memorial Day.

It was a strange way to lose, almost as weird as Bryce Harper’s at-bat in the sixth inning.

With the game tied, Harper stepped to the plate against lefty sidearmer Hoby Milner and saw six pitches. Three were down the middle, none faster than 90 mph.

And Harper never took the bat off his shoulder.

“I guess he didn’t think he was going to throw him a strike,” Thomson said. “He was really taking until two strikes, basically, is what it looked like.”

Harper started the ninth-inning rally by lining a single to center field against Williams, who hasn’t allowed a run in 15 of his last 16 appearances. He hustled to third on Stott’s bloop single to center field, and the Phillies were set up for dramatics.

Instead, a replay review confirmed that Stott was out. Bohm struck out on the ensuing pitch to end the game.

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The Brewers broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning when reliever Jeff Hoffman issued a leadoff walk to No. 8-hitting Blake Perkins before lefty Matt Strahm gave up a two-out double to Contreras.

Meanwhile, the Phillies didn’t have a hit between Schwarber’s game-tying single in the fifth inning and Harper’s leadoff hit in the ninth. In the seventh, Bohm hit a long drive to the warning track that was caught by left fielder Perkins with his back to the wall.

When the No. 5 starter’s turn comes around, the Phillies ask Sánchez to keep the game close for five innings.

Once again, he met the challenge.

Sánchez gave up three second-inning runs, though only one was earned after third baseman Edmundo Sosa’s error, and nothing thereafter. He rolled a double play in the third inning and pitched around a two-out hit in the fourth and a two-out walk in the fifth.

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“I’m not satisfied with the results because you obviously expect more out of yourself,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “But it wasn’t bad. I don’t take it as a bad start. But there’s always some work to be done to get better.”

In six starts since being recalled from triple A last month, Sánchez has yielded nine earned runs in 31 innings for a 2.61 ERA. He also has walked only four batters, notable given his control problems earlier in the season in the minors.

Even though the Phillies faced a right-handed starter (Colin Rea), first baseman Darick Hall began the game on the bench. After grounding out in a pinch-hit appearance in the seventh inning, he’s 5-for-33 with 14 strikeouts since returning from triple A.

“There’s some swing-and-miss in there,” Thomson said.

Hall has struggled defensively, too, with Thomson noting that he’s “a much better defender than he’s looked the last couple of days.”