Phillies beat Diamondbacks in 10-inning game to get back to .500

PHOENIX — It’s ironic — and cruel — that just as the Phillies starting pitching is beginning to settle in, their bullpen is doing the opposite. But it is their reality right now. Since June 1, the Phillies bullpen has pitched to a 5.27 ERA. Over that span, their starters have pitched to a 3.09 ERA.

This trend came to bite them on Wednesday night in the Phillies’ 4-3 win. After Ranger Suárez gave them his best start of the season — tossing seven shutout innings — Seranthony Domínguez took the mound in the eighth. He hasn’t looked as sharp of late. He’s striking out fewer batters than he did last year (dropping from a 29.5% strikeout rate to a 22% strikeout rate). Dominguez had thrown just 10 strikeouts (of 19 pitches) in his previous outing on June 11 against the Dodgers, allowing a home run.

He allowed another on Wednesday. He gave up a leadoff double to the Diamondbacks’ nine-hole hitter, Jake McCarthy, then allowed a walk to Geraldo Perdomo, but induced a pop out and a flyout to get two quick outs. He was one pitch away from escaping damage, but on a 2-2 count, he fed a hanging slider to Norristown native Christian Walker. Walker knew exactly what to do with it.

He launched the pitch 427 feet to left field. The Phillies’ 3-0 lead was blown. The game was now tied 3-3. Suárez, for all of his efforts, would not get the win.

Catcher J.T. Realmuto said after the game that Domínguez’s stuff hasn’t looked as crisp because he’s having trouble locating it.

“Even when he’s throwing strikes, they’re not the type of quality strikes that when he’s on, that he’s getting,” Realmuto said. “He’s throwing more on the edges, up in the zone, able to control the fastball a little bit better. So he’s not getting as much swing and miss there.

“And same thing with the slider. He’s throwing a lot of either ball out of hand sliders, or ones like today — ball out of hand and he backed the next one up and threw it down the middle. So I think the feel for the slider, being able to locate it a little better. Because the stuff is still there, it’s just not as crisp as it was most of the time last year.”

The Phillies were unable to pile on in the ninth, and Craig Kimbrel pitched a one-hit inning in the bottom of the inning that featured a defensive blunder in the outfield. With Brandon Marsh on second base in the tenth, and one out, Trea Turner hit a pop up to right field that bizarrely enough, also resulted in an outfield collision — this time on the Diamondbacks’ part. Castellanos drove home Marsh with a sacrifice fly to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead. Bryce Harper grounded out to end the inning.

Tasked with protecting that lead, Jose Alvarado entered in the tenth. Like Domínguez, Alvarado has not looked himself of late. After not walking anyone in his first 14 outings, he has walked three batters and allowed one earned run since he returned from the injured list on June 9. But on Wednesday, he looked sharp.

Alvarado threw 100 mph or harder on 16 of his 23 pitches. He allowed one walk and one hit over one inning of work with one strikeout, earning his sixth save of the season. He didn’t have a good feel for his cutter, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“Yeah, he was a little amped up. It was coming out pretty good,” Realmuto said. “He wanted to go with his fastball, and I’m never going to have a problem with him wanting to throw an 102 mph sinker.”

Suárez has been good for the Phillies this season, but he was great on Wednesday night. Facing his toughest opponent yet, he allowed no runs and only four hits and two walks with seven strikeouts over seven innings pitched. His fastball command was sharp. And, per usual, his defense was second to none.

In the third inning, with one out and a runner on first, Emmanuel Rivera hit a ball straight at Suárez, who threw it to Bryson Stott at second base. Suárez’s throw was a little high, but Stott closed his glove too quickly, and missed the catch. The runner advanced to third, and the double play opportunity was quashed. Stott was charged an error, but Suárez conceded that he rushed his throw.

Suárez made up for it one at-bat later. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit a ground ball to first baseman Kody Clemens, who threw it to shortstop Turner, who was covering second. Suárez sprinted to first base, and scooped Turner’s throw with his opposite foot on the bag.

“He’s incredible; he really is,” manager Rob Thomson said of Suárez. “He’s a fifth infielder out there. He’s unbelievable.”

Suárez flipped the ball out of his glove nonchalantly as he walked off the field, calm and collected as always. The Phillies needed a shutout outing from their lefty tonight. There was little room for error. The Phillies scored two runs early off of Diamondback starter Merrill Kelly, but Kelly gained steam as his outing continued. He struck out five straight batters from the fourth to the fifth inning, before allowing a titanic 428 foot home run to J.T. Realmuto in the sixth.

Luckily for the Phillies, Suárez was gaining steam, too. He struck out four of the eight hitters he faced in the fourth and fifth innings.

“He was really good,” Realmuto said. “And he seemed to just get better as he went. He was really able to control the strike zone. He was attacking guys. Able to get strike one. And once he got strike one he was able to keep them off balance. He threw the ball really well.

“When he’s on like that, he can do so many things. He goes through the lineup so well multiple times because he can multiple guys out in different ways. Every at-bat he’s using different pitches, different sides of the plate, he’s got four or five plus quality pitches that he can control on both sides of the plate.”

With Wednesday’s win, the Phillies are back at .500. Like they did last year, they’ll keep trying to climb up to five games above, and ten games above, and so on.

“Let’s hope we get above it and don’t look back this time,” Realmuto said. “We’re too good of a baseball team to stay below .500 for too long. So, it’s nice to be back there. There’s obviously a ton of season left. We’re playing good baseball now, but we still have our best baseball ahead of us.”

» READ MORE: Saturday’s bullpen game presents a conundrum for Rob Thomson and the Phillies