Close doesn’t count: Phillies’ bats are too quiet for too long in their Game 5 loss

If there were a way to harness the energy of a charged, nervous crowd and convert it into offense, the Phillies would have scored a thousand runs Thursday night.

Brad Lidge and Carlos Ruiz were a battery again during a World Series game at Citizens Bank Park, this time for the ceremonial first pitch before Game 5, 14 years after they combined to complete the Phillies’ last world championship. Meek Mill danced in right field with the Phanatic, singing “Dreams and Nightmares.” (Presumably Josh Harris’ helicopter had dropped him off somewhere near Darien Street.) That was just before the game. Then Jason Kelce appeared on the video board to scream like a madman and drop an eff bomb, and Kane Kalas, son of Harry, sang “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch and ripped open his suit jacket to reveal a Phillies shirt.

And through all of it, all of it, the 45,693 in the stands screamed and cheered and pleaded for just one more reason to scream and cheer and plead again.

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And through all of it, pretty much all of it, the Phillies were quiet. They had Kyle Schwarber’s leadoff home run, and thereafter they waited until the eighth inning to wake up again. Their bats might as well have been throw pillows. Astros 3, Phillies 2, Houston up three games to two in this series and heading home to Minute Maid Park for Game 6 on Saturday.

No hits Wednesday for the Phillies, so many stranded baserunners and so much frustration for them Thursday, and the team that tied a World Series record with five home runs in a game two nights ago, that did nothing but bang for most of this postseason, is whimpering on its way out.

Yes, the Astros have a terrific pitching staff. Yes, the Phillies were close. Yes, they had their chances. But being close and having chances will never be enough against an opponent of Houston’s quality. If you get men on base, you have to get them in. If you want to beat this team — four World Series appearances in six years, 106 victories this season, hated for their history of being sign-stealing cheaters and tough enough not to care about being hated — you have to get them in. And the Phillies have not.

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They had gone hitless in 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position dating to Game 1 until Jean Segura lined an RBI single to right-center field in the eighth inning, setting up first-and-third with one out, one run away from a tie game, only to have Brandon Marsh strike out and Schwarber crack a sharp groundout to first.

They had Justin Verlander bearing the pressure of his long and ugly history in the World Series, a surefire Hall of Famer who had never won a game in the Fall Classic. And they had him wobbling and never could knock him out. Bases loaded in the bottom of the second, and Rhys Hoskins struck out. Two on in the third, and Bryson Stott flied out to right field. Bryce Harper on second in the fifth, and Nick Castellanos’ little fly ball to left dropped out of the sky and into Yordan Alvarez’s glove like a dying dream.

“I was doing my best to stay relaxed and barrel up something,” Castellanos said. “And I almost did.”

The numbers and trends are startling and discouraging. Since his 10th-inning home run in Game 1, the blast that finished off that remarkable Phillies comeback, J.T. Realmuto is 1-for-17 with 11 strikeouts. Hoskins is batting .142 in this series. The two of them combined for seven strikeouts Thursday. Castellanos’ outfield defense has been great, surprisingly so, throughout the postseason. But he has two singles and a double in 20 at-bats against the Astros, and rest assured, Phillies general manager Dave Dombrowski didn’t sign him to a five-year, $100 million contract to be a good-field, no-hit guy.

» READ MORE: Astros shut down Phillies again in 3-2 victory

“We just have to put good at-bats together,” Realmuto said Thursday afternoon, “continue to do what we do as a team, and see pitches, swing at good pitches, and good things will happen for us.”

Except too few things happened Thursday. In the ninth inning, Hoskins fanned again. Realmuto made his first firm contact in three games, driving the ball to deep right-center field, and Astros center fielder Chas McCormick — a West Chester native and Millersville alumnus — stole an extra-base hit from him with a remarkable running catch as he thudded against the outfield wall. Castellanos came to the plate representing the winning run, with Harper on first, and he grounded out to shortstop.

“I felt like I was in control of what I wanted to do from the first at-bat,” Castellanos said. “But I’m going home empty-handed. That’s baseball sometimes.”

For the Phillies, it was baseball at the wrong time. They were close again. They had a chance again. But in the World Series, all almost means is that you end up watching someone else pop champagne corks.

“Our guys have been really resilient all year long and come back,” manager Rob Thomson said. “They forget about things really easily.”

These last two nights, they gave themselves plenty to forget. They have 48 hours. For the sake of their shot at a world championship, they had better remember who they used to be.