Defensive miscues sink slumping Phillies in 5-4 loss to Giants

SAN FRANCISCO — As if the Phillies don’t have enough to worry about amid five losses in six games, mounting injuries, and the ghost of September collapses past, an old nemesis crept back into the picture Saturday.

You remember the Phillies’ defense.

There was a lot to unpack in a back-and-forth 5-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants at sold-out Oracle Park. Start here: Making his first appearance since Monday, lefty reliever Brad Hand entered a tie game in the sixth inning, threw 38 pitches, and walked in the go-ahead run after Giants manager Gabe Kapler flexed with four — count ‘em, four! — consecutive pinch hitters in the baseball equivalent of a hockey line change.

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Let the record also reflect that the Phillies went 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position and were unable to drive in the tying run from third base with no outs in the seventh inning and from second base with no outs in the eighth. Clutch hits were elusive.

But defense was supposed to be the Phillies’ weakness when the season began. And while it hasn’t hurt them as much as everyone thought, it reared its head when they gave the Giants five outs in the decisive inning.

“Yeah, that’s tough. We’ve been doing that a little bit lately,” interim manager Rob Thomson said. “We’ve got to clean that up.”

It wasn’t only the ball that first baseman Rhys Hoskins booted in the third inning, enabling a run to score. Hand would’ve emerged from the sixth without allowing a run if not for a misjudged fly ball by Kyle Schwarber and a missed opportunity by Jean Segura to turn what may have been an inning-ending double play that would’ve kept the game tied.

The Giants’ rally started when Schwarber initially broke in on Lewis Brinson’s low liner that sailed over his head for a leadoff double.

“I expect to catch that ball,” Schwarber said. “It was doing some different things in the air. If I catch that ball, it might be a different complexion of the game in that innings.”

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Four batters later, with one out and the bases loaded, Thairo Estrada hit a grounder to Segura, who was playing in and close to the bag. He fielded the ball, looked around, and threw to the plate to cut down Brinson.

Good play, except that shortstop Bryson Stott was standing on second base, hands on his head after not receiving a shovel pass from Segura to start a potential double play.

Oops.

“He wasn’t sure whether Stott was going to get to the base in time to be able to turn it,” Thomson said. “So, he just decided, ‘I better get the out and got the out at the plate.’”

The Phillies’ cushion for the final National League playoff spot slid to 3games pending the Milwaukee Brewers’ outcome in Arizona. They will turn to lefty Ránger Suarez on Sunday to avert a sweep before heading home.

But considering the Phillies are 47-71 after Sept. 1 since 2018, a difficult road trip will lead skeptics to suggest that they are poised for another late-season disappearing act.

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“I wouldn’t say that this group is getting tight,” said Schwarber, a veteran of six playoff appearances in seven years with the Cubs and Red Sox. “There’s still a good amount of baseball to be played. It’s just one of those things that, it’s our jobs to shorten up [the losing streaks] and make it last as short as possible.

“This group is capable of doing it. I’m not worried about that. I know that everyone is going to be preparing and ready to go out there tomorrow.”

Thomson has projected calm since taking over for fired Joe Girardi on June 3. But as a difficult West Coast trip nears its end, the Phillies are hungry for wins, causing Thomson to manage with urgency.

He hooked starter Noah Syndergaard in the fifth inning after 75 pitches. He brought in Connor Brogdon in the fifth inning and Hand in the sixth, early than they typically appear.

And most curiously, he sent newly recalled catcher Donny Sands to the plate with the tying run on second base in the eighth inning to hit for Brandon Marsh, who struck out in three previous at-bats.

“I knew that [hard-throwing Camilo] Doval was coming in for [on-deck batter Matt] Vierling, and so I was going for it right there,” said Thomson, who couldn’t use Nick Castellanos after he got an MRI on an oblique muscle in his right side MRI earlier in the day.

But Sands was called up from triple A two days earlier and has not yet recorded his first major league hit. He grounded into a double play that moved Stott to third base before Vierling struck out against Doval.

The loss obscured a superb game by Stott, who collected two hits, including a solo homer, scored three runs, and started a highlight-reel double play to get Brogdon out of the fifth inning.

With the bases loaded and one out, after Hoskins’ error allowed a run to score, Stott ranged up the middle for David Villar’s grounder. He made a backhanded flip to Segura, who barehanded it, and threw a strike to first.

Stott led off the top of the sixth with a homer into McCovey Cove beyond the right-field wall. It was the third time that a Phillies player has reached the Cove, with Stott joining Cody Asche (July 11, 2015) and Bryce Harper (Aug. 9, 2019).

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In the continuation of a two-week trend for Phillies starters, Syndergaard didn’t complete five innings.

Syndergaard put runners on base in the first and third innings. He gave up a one-out double to Mike Yastrzemski and Estrada’s bunt single before being lifted from a 3-3 game with the go-ahead run on third base. Syndergaard gave up four runs (three earned) on seven hits and a walk in 4⅓ innings, his shortest of his six Phillies starts.

It marked the 13th time in 16 games that a Phillies starter went less than seven innings. It hasn’t happened since Aug. 27, when Kyle Gibson went seven against the Pittsburgh Pirates.