Phils are own worst enemy in 10-inning loss to Pirates

PITTSBURGH — Cristopher Sánchez was receiving handshakes and high-fives in the Phillies’ dugout Sunday after pitching five no-hit innings when Trea Turner asked why the lefty was coming out of the game.

Sánchez pointed to his stomach.

“I thought he got hurt,” Turner said. “I was like, ‘Oh damn, man.’ I thought oblique [muscle], or something.”

Sánchez wasn’t injured. But he was dealing with a stomach illness, and after he got through the Pirates’ lineup twice on 73 pitches, manager Rob Thomson decided it was enough.

There were other stomach-turning reasons why the Phillies took a 6-4 punch to the gut in 10 innings on Josh Palacios’ two-run homer and dropped two of three games to the Pirates. They blew a pair of two-run leads, gave away one run by making two costly errors in the seventh inning, and botched a potential scoring opportunity on the bases in the 10th.

“I’ve seen us play better, that’s for sure,” Thomson said, and surely the baseball operations staff agreed as it huddled back in Philadelphia to chart a course ahead of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline. “We’ve got to clean it up. We made some fundamental mistakes. [Poor] communication on pop-ups, we’ve seen that a few times this year. Baserunning mistakes. We’ve got to clean it all up, and we will.”

First, though, the pitching decision. Thomson conceded that the Phillies didn’t want Sánchez to throw more than about 90 pitches. It’s possible, then, that he could’ve come out for one more inning.

But with the top of the Pirates’ order due to bat for a third time, Thomson didn’t want to take any chances. Sánchez didn’t give up a hit, but he did walk two batters and hit three.

“He wasn’t feeling well all day,” Thomson said. “He said, ‘No, I’m OK.’ But I want to take care of the kid, make sure he got out of there on a good note.”

Through a team interpreter, Sánchez said he had “a little stomachache going on, and I didn’t feel like I had much energy.” He hid it well, even from some teammates. Turner said he had no idea that he wasn’t feeling well. Sánchez’s velocity dipped. His second-to-last pitch was a 92-mph sinker, but he also got a double-play grounder on his last pitch.

It was a continuation of Sánchez’s stellar work since getting called up last month. He has surpassed all modest expectations — heck, he has been a revelation — with a 2.30 ERA in eight starts. He has allowed fewer walks/hits per inning pitched (0.85) than any pitcher in baseball since his June 17 call-up.

But Thomson still turned to Seranthony Domínguez, who promptly gave up a game-tying two-run homer to Bryan Reynolds.

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The Phillies overcame it, reclaiming a 4-2 lead in the seventh inning on RBI singles by Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm before giving away a run on a dropped infield fly by Turner and a rare miscue in center field by Johan Rojas.

In the 10th inning, Harper didn’t tag at third on Turner’s medium-depth fly to right field. It was a good decision, given Henry Davis’ strong throw to the plate. When Bohm drew a throw to second base, Harper broke for home. But the Pirates relayed the ball back to the plate and Harper was out easily.

“I saw Bohmer was almost halfway to me [at third base], and once he kind of released to second, thought I had an opportunity to get there,” Harper said. “They made a good throw and got me.”

File it away among the many miscues that sunk the Phillies in a wasted weekend against the noncontending Pirates.

“When talent doesn’t play well or play smart, you get beat,” Harper said. “Doesn’t matter who you’re playing, it’s professional baseball. Got to do the little things right, and that’s playing defense and hitting timely. We had a big opportunity to come in here and do some work, and we weren’t able to do that. Just didn’t happen for us.”

With one out in the seventh inning, third baseman Edmundo Sosa and shortstop Turner converged on a pop fly by Connor Joe. Both infielders called for it, but neither backed off. The ball clanked off Turner’s glove, and Joe wound up a first base.

Out of frustration, Turner chucked the dead ball into left field.

“Once I started calling it, I heard him and I didn’t want to back off and we’d both be standing there looking at each other,” Turner said. “Bad communication on my part. Should’ve just let him catch the ball.”

One batter later, Reynolds singled to center field, where Rojas bobbled the ball as he tried to retrieve it. Joe scored from first base, while Reynolds wound up on second.

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Bohm staked the Phillies to a pair of two-run leads, neither of which held up.

Batting in the cleanup spot, Bohm bashed a two-run homer in the fourth inning against Pirates lefty Rich Hill, then added an RBI single in the seventh.

Since the All-Star break, Bohm is 16-for-55 (.291) with eight RBIs. With the Phillies seeking consistency out of the No. 2 spot in the order, Bohm could be a candidate. But Thomson said he prefers to keep Bohm in a run-producing spot because he doesn’t strike out as much as some others in the lineup.