Blue Jays get to Aaron Nola, snap Phillies’ seven-game winning streak with 5-3 victory

Toronto cooled off the Phillies at least for one day by tagging Nola with four earned runs and nine hits in 5⅔ innings.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson pulls Aaron Nola from the game in the sixth inning on Wednesday.Read moreJose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

Published May 8, 2024, 4:25 p.m. ET

Despite the loss of their star shortstop to a left hamstring strain, the Phillies haven’t faced much adversity over the past few weeks. They entered Wednesday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays with a 26-11 record and a seven-game winning streak. They had gotten out to quick leads — outscoring their opponents by 35 runs in the first two innings of their past 20 games — and had been able to hold them.

Wednesday was different. Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt has historically pitched well against the Phillies, and continued to do so in a 5-3 victory, just the Phillies’ second loss in their last 13 games. The right-hander didn’t allow a hit until the third inning, when Johan Rojas singled to center field to load the bases for Kyle Schwarber with no outs.

Schwarber hit a sacrifice fly to right field that scored Bryson Stott, then Bassitt mowed down the next 11 batters he faced. The Phillies didn’t score another run until the seventh, when Brandon Marsh and Nick Castellanos reached second and third on a single and a double with one out. Bassitt came out after that, and Stott drove in Marsh with a sacrifice fly against reliever Zach Pop to cut the Blue Jays’ lead to 4-2.

“I feel like he does a really good job at just mixing everything up,” Schwarber said of Bassitt. “Nothing is really the same. He was hitting some spots, staying down in the zone early, and coming up late. Mixing in some breaking balls, too. He did a good job today. Tip your cap to him.”

The Phillies were 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Their three runs came on just seven hits. It was a stark contrast from the Blue Jays’ lineup, which went 5-for-14 with runners in scoring position and totaled 12 hits.

Starter Aaron Nola held the Blue Jays to one run and five hits in his first five innings, but he struggled in the sixth. A single, force out, and double put runners on second and third with one out. Bo Bichette and Davis Schneider hit back-to-back RBI singles to give the Blue Jays a 3-1 lead.

Nola induced a pop out and Matt Strahm entered in relief, allowing a single to Kevin Kiermaier to give the Blue Jays a 4-1 lead.

“I thought earlier in the game his strike-to-ball ratio wasn’t like Noles usually is,” said manager Rob Thomson. “And then about the third inning, he got it, and then he really settled in nice. And I think in the last inning he just missed some spots.”

Seranthony Domínguez pitched the seventh. He allowed a leadoff walk to Daulton Varsho — feeding him four balls that were nowhere near the strike zone, and one strike — and then struck out Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Domínguez induced a groundout and a fly out to end the inning. He seemed to get a better handle on his control as the outing went on.

Orion Kerkering entered in the eighth, inducing a fly out, but he allowed a walk and two singles to give the Blue Jays an insurance run. José Ruiz pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning.

The Phillies tried to rally in the bottom of the ninth, but fell short. Alec Bohm singled, Marsh reached base on a force out, and Castellanos singled to put runners on first and second for Stott with one out. Stott hit an RBI double to score Marsh, but Kody Clemens and Whit Merrifield each popped out to end the game.

The Phillies have been banking a lot of wins lately, but that didn’t make this loss any more palatable.

“I don’t think you’re going to look around the room and see any happy faces,” Schwarber said. “Everyone is disappointed after a loss. It doesn’t matter if you’re 10 games above .500 or 10 games below .500. A loss is a loss. Our expectation every time we walk out of the clubhouse is to try to win the game. We’re expecting to win the game. And I think that’s the mindset you have to have, especially in this game, when you play so many of them.

“It’s easy after the fact to kind of look at it and be like, ‘Well, you know it’s a loss,’ but I don’t think anyone is happy about it. There’s definitely a lot of things that we could have done better or possibly executed on more. It is what it is. We kept fighting. We were one swing away against a really good pitcher. That’s the positive thing. Just got to keep fighting.”