Phillies’ 13-game road win streak ends, Bryce Harper exits after taking pitch to elbow in loss to Marlins

MIAMI — For the month of June, Ranger Suárez was one of the most dominant starters in baseball. He pitched to a 1.08 ERA that month. But July has been a different story.

In Suárez’s last two starts, on July 2 and in Saturday’s 5-3 loss in Miami, which snapped a franchise record-tying 13-game road winning streak, he’s allowed eight earned runs with seven walks. It has all looked very un-Ranger like. Even more un-Ranger like was his defense on Saturday afternoon. In the third inning, former Phillie Jean Segura hit a ball straight back at Suárez. It went through his legs and was scored a hit.

An inning later, Suárez received the first fielding error of his career when Garrett Hampson laid down a pop up bunt that Suárez dropped. If Suárez had caught the bunt, the inning would’ve been over with Jorge Soler’s pop fly two at-bats later. Instead, it became a sacrifice fly, as the go-ahead run scored for the Marlins.

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This was all unusual coming from a pitcher who is normally calm, cool and collected — especially on defense.

“I don’t know what happened,” Suárez said. “I don’t know how to describe it. But as you saw a run came in after that, if I had caught that ball it would’ve been different.”

Suárez finished his day after 5⅔ innings pitched, allowing eight hits, four runs, three earned runs, four walks and four strikeouts with one home run. He hadn’t allowed four walks in a regular season start since Aug. 23.

“I didn’t have good control of my sinker, the curveball was hanging more often than not, and obviously the walks were a big problem for me,” Suárez said.

The Phillies’ lineup set an early tone but fizzled as the game went on. Trea Turner hit his 10th home run of the season in the first inning, a solo shot to left field, to put the Phillies on the board early. Alec Bohm and Edmundo Sosa got on base with two singles in the second, and Cristian Pache — fresh off of his ninth inning heroics the night before — hit an RBI double to score Bohm. Sosa scored in the next at-bat, when Kyle Schwarber grounded out.

But they didn’t score any runs after that. They went 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position. The Marlins piled on in the seventh inning against reliever Yunior Marte. Marte allowed a single, a walk, and an RBI single to give the Marlins a 5-3 lead.

Dylan Covey had a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth to keep the game within reach. But there was no heroic outcome this time. A.J. Puk, who allowed the go-ahead, pinch-hit home run to Pache on Friday, allowed just one single in the ninth inning.

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Bryce Harper was hit on his surgically-repaired elbow by a Braxton Garrett sinker in the third inning. He was in obvious pain, and was looked at by the Phillies’ medical staff, but stayed in the game. He later exited when Bryson Stott pinch-hit for him in the fifth inning.

After the game, Rob Thomson said Harper is feeling “sore” but his x-rays came back negative. He and Harper are unsure of whether he’ll play on Sunday. They’re going to see how he feels in the morning.

“I don’t like getting hit, I don’t think anybody likes getting hit,” Harper said, “but I think it definitely could have been worse.”