Phillies drop another Zack Wheeler start after bats go cold, defense gets sloppy in loss to Pirates

Raise your hand if you had Zack Wheeler with a 3.00 ERA through four starts.

OK, now keep them up if you had the Phillies losing all four games.

For a change, the finger of blame pointed at least partially at Wheeler, who hung a curveball on his 100th — and final — pitch Sunday for a go-ahead grand slam by the Pirates’ Jack Suwinski in a 9-2 thumping before the largest crowd yet this season — 44,568 paying customers — at Citizens Bank Park.

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But the Phillies are also developing a vexing habit of not scoring many runs when their ace pitches. Trea Turner homered for the first time this season and drove in a run with a two-out single, but otherwise, the Phillies went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position and grounded into three double plays.

“You never want to waste a good start, especially when your ace is up there,” Turner said. “It feels like we beat ourselves on those days.”

Never more than in the series finale against the Pirates.

In Wheeler’s starts — opening day against the Braves, April 3 in the rain against the Reds, April 9 in St. Louis, and now, against Pirates ace Mitch Keller and two relievers — the Phillies are batting .211 (27-for-128), including 3-for-20 with runners on second or third, and have scored a total of six runs.

But while the offense sputtered again, the defense wasn’t sharp, either. The Phillies committed two errors, both of which led to runs, and were charged with a third that was later changed. They also gave the Pirates extra outs when they failed to turn two potential double plays in the fourth inning.

All together now: Yuck.

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“There were a lot of cases where we gave extra bases to people, and you can’t do that,” said manager Rob Thomson. “That’s not typically what we do. It was just kind of a weird game today. We’ve just got to dust it off and come back in here [Monday].”

The Phillies slipped back to the .500 mark, at 8-8, with six home games upcoming against the Colorado Rockies (4-12) and Chicago White Sox (2-13), two of baseball’s biggest weaklings.

Surely, it’s time to make hay, no?

“Yeah, yeah, especially at home,” Thomson said. “I know the records of these two teams, but you can’t take anyone for granted. These are all Major League Baseball teams, so you have to go out and play your game.”

Wheeler had a 2-1 lead entering the sixth inning when third baseman Alec Bohm‘s flub of a grounder enabled leadoff man Ke’Bryan Hayes to reach. Wheeler walked Rowdy Tellez on a full-count splitter and gave up a bloop single to Andrew McCutchen to load the bases.

After getting Suwinski to foul off an elevated first-pitch fastball, Wheeler went to the curveball and left it over the plate. Suwinski lined it into the right-field seats to give the Pirates a 5-2 lead.

“It was down a little, but it was middle and it was a little bit of a hanger, and he just put good wood on it,” Wheeler said. “He backspun it out of there. It was kind of weird seeing that off the bat. It doesn’t happen all that much. Credit to him.”

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There wasn’t much coming back from that, especially after Seranthony Domínguez came on for Wheeler and gave up a solo homer (on another slider) to Joey Bart. McCutchen tacked on a two-run shot — the former Phillie’s 300th career homer — in the ninth inning against reliever Ricardo Pinto.

Overall, Wheeler was mostly pleased. He said he made an adjustment to his mechanics, staying more upright rather than leaning over, and it caused his velocity to jump and his sweeper to move more effectively. He got 15 swings-and-misses and piled up 10 strikeouts, his 23rd career double-digit strikeout game.

“It just let me be a little more free and easy,” Wheeler said. “[Sweeper] was definitely taking off a lot more today, and felt like my curveball was better today because of that. [The Pirates] had a good approach, too. Sometimes you’ve got to give them credit. They weren’t biting on a lot of stuff down. It was a little cat-and-mouse game. I just need to do better.”

What, then, of his teammates, who haven’t given him much support?

Turner’s first homer of the season staked Wheeler to only his second lead in four starts in the third inning. But the 1-0 edge was short-lived.

With two out in the fourth inning, the Pirates orchestrated a set play to score a run. Jared Triolo broke from first base and drew a throw from J.T. Realmuto, at which point McCutchen took off from third. The throw went into center field and was ruled an error, but because McCutchen was running, the call got changed to a double steal.

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Thomson said Realmuto made the right decision to throw to second base. The Phillies practice having the middle infielder return the catcher’s throw if the runner at third breaks from home.

“If we play catch there,” Thomson said, “he’s out.”

Johan Rojas’ legs helped restore the Phillies’ lead, at 2-1, in the fifth. He lined a one-out single, stole second, went to third on a medium-depth fly out to center field, and scored on Turner’s two-out single.

Once again, it wasn’t enough in a Wheeler start.

Just for more reasons than usual.

“We were right in there playing good the first five innings and then let that one get away,” Turner said. “If you don’t play well enough, anybody can beat you on any day.”

Clip and save, and let it be a lesson with the Rockies and White Sox on deck.