Phillies’ four-game winning streak ends with a shutout loss to the Marlins
Kyle Schwarber went 0-for-3, as did Bryce Harper, as the Phillies picked up their first loss in the fifth game under interim manager Don Mattingly.
MIAMI — Zack Wheeler is right. If there’s a road back from the Phillies’ 9-19 start, it’s paved with a string of quality outings from a high-priced stable of veteran starting pitchers.
But sometimes they will just need Kyle Schwarber or Bryce Harper to slug.
Saturday was one of those days, with two outfielders missing from the lineup, the third-string catcher starting in left field, and the right fielder starting in center.
Schwarber and Harper to the rescue?
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Not this time.
Instead, the Phillies were one-hit in a 4-0 blanking by the Marlins, their first loss in five games under interim manager Don Mattingly. Only a scorched single from catcher-turned-outfielder Garrett Stubbs in the third inning against Marlins starter Max Meyer spared them the ignominy of a no-hitter.
“He was a first pick over here when I was here,” said Mattingly, whose last year as Marlins manager (2022) coincided with Meyer’s major league debut. “The slider has always been the calling card, but also chucking around 100 when he started. He kind of kept us off balance all day.”
Schwarber surely could attest to that.
Meyer struck out Schwarber on a slider in the first inning and sweepers in the fourth and seventh. Harper froze on a called-strike fastball in the first inning and swung through a sweeper in the fourth.
Schwarber and Harper were 0-for-6 with five strikeouts.
Schwarber, particularly, has had a miserable time so far in Miami. After going 5-for-6 with three walks and homering in both games of Thursday’s doubleheader sweep of the Giants at home, he’s 0-for-8 with eight strikeouts through two games against the Marlins.
“Maybe he’s not seeing the ball good here,” Mattingly said. “He comes out of that doubleheader in Philly kind of on fire, and they’ve just neutralized him here. But not a guy that you really worry about unless it gets extended.”
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Wayne Twitchell, a pitcher, set the Phillies’ record with strikeouts in nine consecutive plate appearances in 1973. The modern mark for a Phillies position player also is nine, although Dylan Cozens made two trips back to triple A during the stretch in 2018.
The Phillies were shorthanded because Brandon Marsh was sore after getting hit by a pitch on the right elbow Friday night. Rookie center fielder Justin Crawford was a late scratch with a migraine that came on about 40 minutes before the first pitch. Crawford said postgame that he should be ready to play Sunday.
Mattingly put Stubbs in left field, moved Felix Reyes to right, and put Adolis García in center field for the first time since 2023. It left Andrew Painter having to be nearly perfect in his fifth career major league start.
Painter, a South Florida native, gave up back-to-back-to-back singles but escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the second inning.
In the third, he wasn’t as fortunate.
The Marlins loaded the bases again on three singles in a row. Painter struck out Liam Hicks and was one strike from another Houdini act. But he sailed a high-and-outside sinker to Agustín Ramírez to walk in a run.
“I’m thinking kind of just throw it middle and let the seams take it in,” Painter said. “I just pulled it down. Just probably got a little too amped up.”
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One batter later, Painter walked Connor Norby on a sweeper to force home another run and give the Marlins a 2-0 lead.
“I felt like everything was a little sped up, a little pull-y,” Painter said. “All the misses, they were consistently glove side. We’ll go and look back at that. It was pretty up-tempo, pretty quick. In that situation, I’ve just got to slow down a little bit and think through the glove.”
Through six major league appearances, Painter has a 5.28 ERA. But he has pitched better than the numbers, keeping the Phillies in every game.
“I just kind of just shoot myself in the foot,” Painter said. “I think there were probably two or three hard-hit balls today. But you’ve just got to limit those [walks].
“That’s me just beating myself. If you’re going to give them up, I think you want to give them up rather than the free bases and just beating yourself up.”
Xavier Edwards tacked on a solo homer against Painter in the fifth inning, and the Marlins scored again in the sixth against lefty reliever Tanner Banks.
But given how quiet the Phillies’ bats went against Meyer and two relievers, nothing much mattered once the Marlins got the lead.
Hunter Pence's 368-day stint with the Phillies was a study in extremes. Acquired at the trade deadline in 2011 as the missing right-handed bat for a World Series contender, he got dealt a year later by an underachieving team. And with the Phillies in full-on crisis mode this week, Pence sits down with "Phillies Extra," the Inquirer's baseball podcast, to discuss how quickly a team's fortunes can change. Watch here.
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Previous episodes: Paco Figueroa | Gage Wood | Scott Boras | Brian Barber | Aaron Nola | Justin Crawford | Garrett Stubbs | Kyle Schwarber | Brad Keller | J.T.Realmuto
