Phillies rally to tie the game in the eighth, but lose to the Diamondbacks in walk-off fashion

PHOENIX — Adrian Del Castillo only needed one pitch to win the game.

The Arizona Diamondbacks catcher, who was called up earlier this week and made his major league debut on Wednesday, stepped up to the plate against Jeff Hoffman with the game tied in the bottom of the ninth.

Hoffman threw a first-pitch fastball straight down the heart of the plate, and the rookie made him pay dearly, launching his first career home run to walk off the Phillies, 3-2.

“He can hit, there’s no doubt about it,” manager Rob Thomson said. “Hoffy threw the ball down the middle to get ahead, and he clipped him.”

Trailing by two for most of the game, the Phillies’ first run didn’t come until the seventh inning, when Bryce Harper crushed an opposite-field home run to the left-field seats. Johan Rojas tied the game an inning later with a double that scored Nick Castellanos from first. But by then, it was too little, too late, as the Phillies squandered a quality start from Zack Wheeler.

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Rojas had a solid night at the plate overall. He hit an opposite-field line drive in the third inning, but Corbin Carroll made an acrobatic catch in right field. Rojas followed it up with a single in the sixth.

“I just kept working with the coaches, especially [hitting coaches Rafael Peña] and [Kevin] Long,” Rojas said through a team interpreter. “I think that Peña has been working very hard with me recently, and the whole team is just working [in] a tremendous way. We’re just working hard to get better, and just hoping to win in many more games.”

Rojas is expected to get more innings in center field with Austin Hays placed on the injured list with a hamstring strain on Friday. Brandon Marsh has moved over to left field, leaving an opening for Rojas.

The Diamondbacks, by contrast, got things started early. Arizona didn’t hit Wheeler very hard in the first inning — of their three singles, the hardest hit was 85.2 mph off the bat — but they found gaps in the infield to plate a run on a Del Castillo single for the early lead.

Wheeler allowed some traffic on the bases, with seven hits and a pair of walks, but the only other run he allowed came off a solo shot from Joc Pederson in the third. He recorded eight strikeouts, five of which were called looking.

“The first inning kind of killed me a little bit,” Wheeler said. “Just some soft hits getting through. And they just put a run on the board. And then [the pitch to] Joc, it was thigh-high, but it was in, and he just did a nice job of hitting that.”

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Thomson and Wheeler agreed that his splitter wasn’t effective. Wheeler added the splitter to his arsenal this offseason, and when it’s working for him, it can be an effective tool to neutralize left-handed hitters. But on Friday, seven of the nine splitters Wheeler threw were balls. The other two were foul balls the Diamondbacks chased out of the zone.

“I think I threw one not in the dirt tonight,” Wheeler said. “That’s kind of frustrating, but [I’m] also keeping the back of my head that it is still a new pitch for me. So I’m just trying to fix it as I go. And I think the last one I threw was the one that I threw that had the best chance tonight, so that one felt better.”

Wheeler said that his feel for his splitter can vary from start to start. Sometimes he can tell in the bullpen pregame if it’s not working for him.

“I have a lot of other pitches I can throw, but it’s just mixing it up,” Wheeler said. “And J.T. [Realmuto] always calls a great game for me. I shook him off one time tonight, and that was when Joc hit that home run.”

Diamondbacks starter Ryne Nelson faced the minimum through four innings, before Alec Bohm ended his bid for a perfect game with a bloop to right field that he stretched into a double. Nelson stranded him at second with three straight strikeouts.

Nelson often got ahead in the count against the Phillies hitters. Out of 25 batters faced in 7⅓ innings, Nelson threw 21 first-pitch strikes.

Bohm singled in the ninth to put the go-ahead run at first, but Marsh grounded out to end the inning, bringing Del Castillo to the plate.