Orion Kerkering’s seventh-inning meltdown spoils Andrew Painter’s solid return as Phillies lose fourth straight

BALTIMORE — When the Phillies arrived here this week, they were met by more than a dozen club executives, analysts, and scouts.

It was time for a summit.

In case you hadn’t heard, the trade deadline is Monday — 6 p.m., to be exact. As the hours tick down, Dave Dombrowski is huddling with his lieutenants — owner John Middleton made the short trip, too — to come up with a plan to address multiple holes, with considerable focus on a right-handed bat and a starting pitcher.

And then, Orion Kerkering reminded everyone Friday night that the Phillies need bullpen help, too — maybe more than anything else.

» READ MORE: The Orioles’ Taylor Ward fits the Phillies’ needs. But will he be on the market at the MLB trade deadline?

Kerkering, the team’s most trustworthy setup reliever, melted like soft serve in the seventh inning. He gave up four runs and spoiled the return of Andrew Painter (remember him?) in a fall-from-ahead 6-4 loss to the Orioles, the Phillies’ fourth consecutive defeat and 10th in 13 games since the All-Star break.

“It’s frustrating because can’t give this team a chance to win, almost, it feels like,” Kerkering said. “And it [ticks] me the [heck] off — a lot. I’ve just got to figure it out."

After climbing back from a 9-19 start and reaching a high-water mark of 11 games over .500 on July 20, the Phillies are 57-53. In a 13-day span, they went from two games behind the division-leading Braves to eight back.

Suddenly, even their hold on a playoff spot is tenuous, down to 1½ games over the Padres and Marlins for the final National League wild card. And amid the freefall, Dombrowski put his arm around Bryce Harper after the game in a hallway outside the clubhouse for a chat in full view of players and staff.

“It’s definitely not the brand of baseball that we want to be playing,” said J.T. Realmuto, whose solo homer in the sixth inning opened a 4-2 lead behind Painter. “We’ve got the guys in this room to win. We know that we just have to play better.”

But the roster is springing leaks. Just as Realmuto and Trea Turner begin to give the Phillies more production from the right side of the plate and Painter provides six encouraging innings from the problematic fifth-starter spot, the bullpen is starting to look cooked.

Take Kerkering, for instance. Pressed into even higher-leverage duty after Brad Keller was lost to Tommy John surgery, he has walked five of 25 batters over his last five appearances, including the Orioles’ Colton Cowser with one out after allowing a leadoff single.

“The hits will come, but walks you can control,” Kerkering said. “It’s just one of those things that, it’s been a struggle this year, and yeah, it just [ticks] me off to keep walking guys.”

» READ MORE: Bryce Harper is right. The Phillies do ‘need some help’ by trades. But they also need some from within.

But interim manager Don Mattingly stuck with Kerkering, and pinch-hitting Christian Encarnacion-Strand ripped a game-tying two-run double on a sweeper that wasn’t a bad pitch.

Truth was, it wasn’t bad enough.

“It was a ball, but we wanted that pitch pretty far off the plate,” Realmuto said. “He’s a guy that, he’ll chase quite a bit, so we were trying to expand pretty big. I thought it was a decent pitch, just not quite what we wanted.”

Still, two batters later, Kerkering was one strike from keeping the game tied. Instead, he hit Pete Alonso with a fastball. Mattingly called on lefty reliever Tim Mayza, who gave up a two-run triple to Gunnar Henderson.

“Kerky, we felt like was the perfect guy for the mixed [lefty-righty] pocket we were going to get there,” Mattingly said. “Even with the pinch-hitter, I thought it was the right guy. It didn’t work out.”

In recent days, the Phillies have sent their scouts to watch starting pitchers, right-handed hitters, and relievers. And while the first two needs might be more essential to getting them into the playoffs, the latter is emerging as perhaps their biggest overall weakness.

Especially if Painter can stabilize the rotation.

The Phillies are 5-22 from the fifth-starter spot, including 12 losses in a row. But Painter, who found out roughly 24 hours before pitching that his next start would be back in the majors, overcame a two-run homer from Alonso in the first inning to get a lead to the bullpen.

With a new grip on his changeup and better command of his fastball, Painter retired 10 batters in a row at one point. When he got Leody Taveras to ground into an inning-ending double play to end the sixth inning, he clapped his glove.

» READ MORE: The Phillies must go through the Dodgers. To do it they’ll need to find a lefty reliever at the trade deadline.

“Andy was really good tonight,” Mattingly said.

Good enough to dissuade the Phillies from trading for a starter? Probably not. Maybe they can address multiple needs by finding a starter who can move to the bullpen in the playoffs. (The Mets’ Clay Holmes or the Giants’ Robbie Ray spring to mind.)

After all, the bullpen torpedoed the Phillies in the last three postseasons, since the 2023 NL Championship Series. In last year’s NL Division Series, the Phillies had 3-2 and 1-0 leads against the Dodgers in the seventh inning of Games 1 and 4, respectively. They lost both games.

Surely, then, the bullpen must still be a concern.

“For sure, yeah, we’re concerned,” Realmuto said. “But we believe we have the guys in this room to get it done. We’ve got guys that have gotten a lot of big outs for us in the last few years and with really good stuff.”

Kerkering sounded like he expects that the Phillies will reinforce the bullpen.

“Everyone knows it at the end of the day,” he said. “But I don’t think anyone thinks about it, like when you’re out there or getting ready for the day.”

Said Mattingly: “[The bullpen] hasn’t been good lately. It’s really been pretty good up until this point. This too shall pass.”

Maybe with a trade or two.

Watch the latest episode

No matter what moves the Phillies make before the trade deadline Monday, they will have to fix some of their issues internally. Chief among them: Trea Turner's defense at shortstop. And that's where infield coach Bobby Dickerson comes in. Dickerson sat down with "Phillies Extra," The Inquirer's baseball podcast, to discuss Turner's struggles, the problems with analytics in measuring defense, his unique coaching style, and more. Watch here.

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