With owner John Middleton watching, Phillies lose fifth straight, fall to .500, as Bryce Harper objects to verbal barbs from Nationals’ fans

WASHINGTON — The sun came back out Wednesday. Birds chirped. It was 85 degrees in the nation’s capital, perfect baseball weather on the first full day in six months that the Phillies didn’t play a meaningful baseball game.

Oh, but don’t go telling manager Gabe Kapler that these last few days of the season are pointless. He doesn’t see it that way, and maybe he’s right. The Phillies won’t make the playoffs for the eighth year in a row, but as long as there are games to be played, there are wins to be gained and impressions left, especially with majority partner John Middleton and the entire front office watching from a suite high atop Nationals Park.

So, on Day 1 AE (after elimination), with “140 Days Until ST2020,” referring to spring training, posted in the clubhouse, Bryce Harper slid into second base twice on hustle plays, then reacted to hecklers in the right-field bleachers in the eighth inning. Drew Smyly racked up 10 strikeouts in 6 1/3 solid innings. Brad Miller blasted a first-pitch curveball into the upper deck in right field.

And still, the Phillies lost.

Kudos for playing hard and all, but the Phillies’ fifth straight loss — 5-2 to the wild-card Washington Nationals — dropped their record to 79-79, the first time all season they haven’t been above the .500 mark. With four games left, they must go 3-1 to finish with a winning record for the first time since 2011.

“Absolutely [there’s] a desire to have a winning season,” Kapler said. “It’s important to me. It’s important to this ball club. We’re going to keep doing everything in our power to make that happen by preparing hard, by grinding every day, by playing the type of baseball that Bryce Harper played tonight, by making the kind of turn Jean Segura made in the last inning, by battling in every single at-bat.”

Swell. As the organization’s chief decision-makers pick apart the scraps of a lost season and try to figure out why the Phillies slid from 33-22 on May 29 to 46-57 since, how much consolation will they take in everyone playing hard?

Maybe it will reflect well on Kapler that the effort level remains high. Or maybe it will shine a more-blinding light on the talent gap between the Phillies and playoff-bound Nationals, to say nothing of the division-winning Atlanta Braves.

“Our job on a daily basis is to come to the ballpark, to prepare as hard as we can, to put our players in good positions to succeed, and for them to give everything they have," Kapler said. "That’s our focus every single day. That’s not going to change.”

Something else that won’t change: The back-and-forth between Harper and Nationals fans.

After seven years in Washington, Harper left last winter for a 13-year, $330 million deal from the rival Phillies. He gets booed every time he returns, just as he does in most ballparks on the road. He’s used to it. It’s part of the game, he says. But he took exception to the harassment he received in the bottom of the eighth, as the Nationals tacked on two more runs.

“They were fine all game, talking about myself and things like that. But the last inning, it’s just not right,” said Harper, who declined to elaborate on what he heard. “It’s just not right. Individually, you go out there and don’t really worry about what they’re saying. But there are times it’s just not good and just not right. They kind of say whatever they want, and that’s just how it is. You kind of have to live with it."

It barely matters anymore how the Phillies lost another game. For posterity, they blew a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning, when Mike Morin, one of several relievers who wasn’t even in the organization until midway through the season, gave up a double, a game-tying sacrifice fly, and an RBI single.

Smyly, another midseason pickup who was brought in as a low-risk flier to help bolster a rotation that was never good enough, had one of his better nights with the Phillies. He didn’t allow a hit until Howie Kendrick’s two-out, solo homer in the fourth inning, and recorded a season-high in strikeouts.

In 12 starts for the Phillies, the lefty posted a 4.45 earned-run average. Smyly will soon find out whether it was good enough to land a major-league deal as a free agent this winter, either with the Phillies or elsewhere.

“Philly’s definitely going in the right direction,” Smyly said. “We didn’t get it done this season, but this team faced a lot of adversity with all the injuries. With the guys they have in this locker room, they’re definitely going to be good down the road.”