Phillies manage only two hits against the Braves and drop their sixth straight series
Atlanta's Chris Sale made sure the Phillies continued their massive struggles against left-handed starters. The Braves got to Aaron Nola early and it was 6-0 by the second inning.
ATLANTA — The charter was gassed up and ready to fly at about 6 p.m. Sunday.
It could’ve taken off four hours earlier.
Because Aaron Nola dropped the Phillies down a three-run hole after only 10 pitches in a game they stood little chance of winning anyway. Left-handed pitchers are Kryptonite to the Phillies’ hitters — and Braves ace Chris Sale is as good a lefty as there is in baseball.
Stop us, then, if you’ve read this before: The Phillies lost, and it was as uncompetitive as it gets. The latest setback, a 6-2 throttling, dropped them to 9-19, tied for their worst 28-game start since 2002. They are 10½ games behind Atlanta’s pace in the NL East and don’t face the Braves again until September.
Oh, but it gets worse.
The Phillies got two hits, including Kyle Schwarber’s garbage-time homer in the eighth. They had one threat against Sale, but Bryce Harper foul-tipped a 98-mph heater into the catcher’s mitt to strike out — after being ahead 3-0 in the count.
So here they are ... again. After snapping The Skid — a 10-game losing streak — in 10 innings Saturday night in Zack Wheeler’s encouraging return to the mound, the Phillies have lost six consecutive series.
And with a day off Monday before the start of a three-game homestand, get ready for more speculation about the walls closing in on manager Rob Thomson, especially after the Red Sox stunningly fired Alex Cora on Saturday night. Cora, hired in Boston by Dave Dombrowski, is close with the Phillies’ president of baseball operations.
It doesn’t take much to connect the potential dots.
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There’s precedent for Dombrowski to fire a manager in season with the Phillies. But Joe Girardi got 51 games in 2022 before being replaced by Thomson, his bench coach, amid a 29-32 start.
Dombrowski was joined Friday in Atlanta by three of his most trusted pro scouts. He also spent time Sunday with former Braves general manager Frank Wren, who was part of Dombrowski’s front office in Montreal, Miami, and Boston.
Thomson’s lineup for the finale against the Braves included utility man Dylan Moore in center field. Moore hadn’t started a game this season. But facing Sale isn’t a cure for lefty-swinging rookie Justin Crawford’s 4-for-34 funk.
How about Brandon Marsh in center field?
“I really like Marshie’s at-bats,” Thomson said. “I want to keep him right there, so give him a little breather on Sale.”
None of it mattered. In 10 games against non-opener lefty starters, the Phillies are batting .150 and slugging .237. Care to guess their record in those games? Yep, 0-10.
It’s an indictment of Dombrowski’s construction of the lineup, which is built around lefty-swinging Schwarber and Harper. And entering Sunday, the Phillies’ right-handed hitters were slashing .176/.257/.275 against left-handed pitching, a failure encapsulated in the fourth inning, when Sale struck out righty-hitting Felix Reyes, Adolis García, and Alec Bohm on 13 pitches.
By then, the Phillies were already down by six runs.
The Braves opened the game with back-to-back singles and a three-run homer by Matt Olson against Nola. They scored three more in the second inning on Mauricio Dubon’s leadoff triple, Eli White’s two-run homer, a walk, a stolen base, and an RBI single by Drake Baldwin.
