Philadelphia Phillies: Neil Walker pitching highlights ugly sweep to Orioles

The Philadelphia Phillies were downright embarrassing this week.

There’s really no easy way to put it, the Philadelphia Phillies were flat out pathetic during their series with the Baltimore Orioles. Not only did the Orioles win just 54 games last season, but the Phillies saw some incredibly dominant performances from their star players this week, and still managed to fail at securing even a single win.

Game One of the series was capped off with a hilariously awful ending, where poor bullpen pitching was a plenty and errors were made left and right. Despite Bryce Harper and Didi Gregorius executing some incredibly clutch hits in the 8th and the 9th, the Phillies were unable to hang on in extra innings. Hector Neris blew a save, Jean Segura allowed two runs on a dropped pop up, and Roman Quinn allowed a game-winning two-run inside the park home run via a botched dive attempt out in center field.

In all my years of watching Phillies baseball, it was genuinely one of the most laughable conclusions to a game I’ve ever seen. The team just continued to one-up themselves with awful play after awful play.

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Game Two saw the Phillies receive six innings of work from Zach Eflin in which he recorded a career-high 10 strikeouts. However, he faltered late into his start, allowing four runs in the process and earning his first loss of the season. Harper went 2-4 and JT Realmuto recorded his 13th RBI of the season, yet it was still not enough to secure a win.

Adam Morgan allowed a home run in just his second pitch of relief, which would prove to be the deciding run when it was all said and done.

Somehow, the Phillies would go on to embarrass themselves even further during the series finale, losing via a score of 11-4 in what turned out to be an absolute circus fest. Harper once again went 2-4 and Realmuto poured in all four of the Phillies’ runs via two home runs, however it was all meaningless when it came to combating the team’s awful pitching.

Starter Jake Arrieta lasted just 4.2 innings, allowing seven hits and four earned runs. The bullpen would go on to allow an additional seven runs following Arrieta’s exit, capped off by a scoreless ninth from utility infielder Neil Walker. Yes, you read that correctly. Backup infielder Neil Walker pitched the ninth inning for the Phillies, and he outperformed pretty much every reliever on the roster in doing so.

Harper is now batting a career-high .356 and is on a historic pace in terms of his 1.202 OPS (best in the MLB currently). Realmuto ranks towards the top of baseball in HRs, RBIs, and OPS as well, and has been simply phenomenal behind the plate. It’s borderline disgusting that the Phillies are failing to win games with these two both playing at an MVP level.

The Philadelphia Phillies will take on their division rival the New York Mets next, as rookie Spencer Howard is expected to take the mound against reigning Cy Young winner Jacob DeGrom. The Phillies are now almost a quarter of the way through the 2020 season, and the thought of “postseason baseball” currently seems impossible.