Phillies out-slugged in 14-4 loss to New York Yankees, their fifth straight to open a series

Standing in the Phillies clubhouse after his team dropped their fourth straight series on Sunday night, Bryce Harper said they had to “turn the page.”

They might want to check that they didn’t turn it backward. With the New York Yankees in town on Monday night, the Phillies were out-slugged in a 14-4 loss, their fifth straight to open a series.

“We’re a really talented club that’s going through a tough time right now. And I truly believe we’re going to come out of it,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.

It was a rare rough outing for Phillies starter Zack Wheeler, who allowed three homers and seven earned runs, each the second-most he’s given up all season. He lasted five innings and walked three batters, striking out six.

“We’re a really good team, and you can’t be good every time out,” Wheeler said. “We’ll go through these stretches throughout the season. We don’t like it. The fans don’t like it. Nobody likes it, but it’s part of the game. It’s a long season. You’re going to go through these parts, but we’ll figure it out.”

The Yankees got to him early, with all three home runs coming as solo shots in the first two innings.

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Wheeler left a sweeper up in the zone for Aaron Judge and MLB’s home run leader made him pay, launching his 38th of the year over the left field wall. Judge would later notch his 39th with a two-run homer off reliever Yunior Marte in the seventh.

Yankee deadline acquisition Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Ben Rice each got ahold of Wheeler’s fastball in the second inning.

“I made some mistakes, they hit the mistakes,” Wheeler said. “A couple good pitches that they hit, also.”

Wheeler added that his back feels good and wasn’t a factor in his performance. He exited early against the Dodgers on July 9 with lower-back tightness and missed his next scheduled start after that.

The Phillies loaded the bases in the third, stringing together a pair of singles from Nick Castellanos and Bryson Stott and a walk to Kyle Schwarber. They were only able to scratch across one run, however, after Trea Turner hit into a fielder’s choice and Harper flew out on the warning track.

When the Yankees loaded the bases two innings later, they cashed in with a two-run double by Juan Soto and a two-run triple by Austin Wells.

“I know everyone in here is doing everything that we possibly can to get it back on the right track,” Kyle Schwarber said. “A lot of it’s baseball, it’s the cliché saying. Baseball, right? But also, it’s going to come down to us. We’re going to keep working, keep doing what we need to do, and go out there and play our brand of baseball, and turn this thing around.”

Harper finished 0-for-4 on Monday, and is 1-for-15 on the homestand. But Thomson saw some positives in his swing.

“He lofted a couple of balls in the air, deep into the outfield, in the middle of the field,” Thomson said. “Usually when guys do that, I’ve said this before, it looks like they’re getting their stroke back.”

The Phillies’ only extra-base hit came courtesy of Brandon Marsh. The outfielder has built a three-game hit streak since breaking out of a 0-for-25 slump on Saturday. Marsh smacked a solo homer to the second deck in the fourth and sliced an RBI single down the right-field line in the sixth.

Stott scored on a wild pitch to plate another run in the seventh, but Anthony Volpe twisted the knife with the Yankees’ fifth homer of the night, this time off Gregory Soto. With the game far out of reach, Phillies catcher Garrett Stubbs took over on the mound in the ninth and gave up another homer to Chisholm.