Lackluster offense leads to another Phillies loss as Cubs sweep series

This has been an abysmal three games for the Phillies. A week ago, they completed a sweep of the Marlins in Miami, something they hadn’t done since 2010. It was a series so impactful that it left fans and media wondering if this team truly was different.

But any optimism about the 2022 Phillies quickly was dampened Sunday after they were swept in three games by the 38-57 Cubs. It was their second three-game sweep of the season. The other was at the hands of the Mets, a team that actually is in playoff contention. The Cubs are fourth in the NL Central standings, and, as of Sunday, are 12½ games out of the third NL Wild Card spot.

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The usual culprit — the Phillies’ offense — cost them in their 4-3 loss on Sunday afternoon. They out-hit the Cubs, with nine hits, but only drove in three runs. The hitters who did drive in runs mostly were players at the bottom of the lineup, with the exception of an RBI single from Rhys Hoskins in the sixth inning. Over their last seven games, the Phillies are batting .200/.269/.337 as a team, which ranks seventh-worst in the National League.

“(Offense) goes up and down throughout the year,” interim manager Rob Thomson said. “We certainly have been scuffling to score runs lately, for sure. But I still have confidence in the fact that we have some professionals on our club and we’re going to end up scoring runs.”

Thomson shuffled up the lineup ahead of Sunday’s game in the hope that it would spark their offense, but the bats stayed quiet. The Phillies are now 49-46 and face the World Series champion Braves in a three-game series starting Monday.

Left-handed starter Bailey Falter, who was recalled from triple-A Lehigh Valley ahead of Sunday’s game, pitched two smooth 1-2-3 innings and then ran into trouble in the third and fourth innings. He allowed a home run to Yan Gomes, two walks and hit a batter in the third, and another home run to Gomes, a home run to Nelson Velázquez, and a single in the fourth.

In all, Falter pitched five innings, allowing five hits, four earned runs, two walks and three home runs with five strikeouts. He has a 5.06 ERA over his last six starts (and seven games). He has been filling in for Zach Eflin, who has been on the injured list with a right knee bruise since June 28 (retroactive to June 26), but with Eflin’s timetable uncertain, it would behoove the Phillies to prioritize starting pitching ahead of the trade deadline on Aug. 2.

Most of the Phillies’ starters have the ability to go six, seven, or even eight innings if need be. That length is part of the reason why the bullpen has been dominant of late. Falter hasn’t shown the ability to do that yet, at least not at the big league level. He hasn’t gone past five innings in a big league start this season.

If Eflin were coming back in a week, this wouldn’t as big of a deal. But the cumulative effect of Falter’s shorter starts over the last half of the season will cause some wear and tear on the bullpen.

Falter said he’s been trying to work on pitching deeper into games.

“We’re trying to get the pitch count up to 100 pitches,” Falter said. “I feel like down there in Lehigh Valley and up here, I’ve had a couple of long innings. The third and the fourth were pretty long. So we’ve just got to get the pitches down, and that’s going to allow us to go deeper into games. That’s all it is.”

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As mentioned above, it’s the Phillies’ more veteran hitters who have been struggling. Kyle Schwarber is batting .071 over his last seven games. Rhys Hoskins is batting .154 over that span. Nick Castellanos’ struggles at the plate have been well-documented and have been occurring all year. Didi Gregorius is three for his last 25. This isn’t exactly a winning formula, and the Phillies won’t be able to count on the Day Care to bail them out. Something has got to change.

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“We’ve been working, but no results right now,” Schwarber said of the team’s recent at-bats. “It’s tough. We’re fighting, scratching, clawing right now to get some runs across, but it’s part of the game. We have to keep working. It’s a three-game narrative right now. It’s not an indication of us, I would say, as a group. But we need to get on base and start producing runs, right? That’s the name of the game.

“I felt like our pitchers have done a really good job this series to keep us in the games. And we just didn’t [go out there and score runs for them]. It is what it is. It’s obviously frustrating. We never look to get swept at home. But it’s the reality of the situation. We’ve got a good series coming in here with the Braves. Just got to have the short memory but also learn from it.”