Philadelphia Phillies drop a crazy and costly series to Miami

The Philadelphia Phillies lost five of seven to the Miami Marlins and suffered injuries to boot.

Mercifully, the Philadelphia Phillies are done with the Miami Marlins this year.

The Phillies will be licking their wounds on the way home after struggling all throughout a seven-game series, one that could have seen them virtually guarantee themselves a playoff spot with a good performance, but that now has them in a dogfight after going 2-5 against the Fish. The final failure came on Monday afternoon when Vince Velasquez once again proved his uselessness, as he didn’t escape the fourth inning in a 6-2 loss. The team had no choice but to use him, and he let them down once more.

Velasquez was one of 34 unique pitchers to appear in the series between the two teams, which is outright ridiculous but not entirely unexpected in this strange 2020 MLB season. It was all part and parcel of the two clubs playing 55 innings in a little over 96 hours of real time. And in case you were wondering, the games took a cumulative 19 hours and 33 minutes. Yes, I added it all up.

Of the several dozen hurlers to toe the rubber, a pair stood out. Aaron Nola notched his first career complete game (and shutout) on Friday, although even he acknowledged that it doesn’t really count since it was of the 7-inning variety as the first game of a doubleheader. The other dominant pitcher of the series was Sixto Sanchez, pulling off the first of what will probably be many performances that will terrorize the Phillies for years to come.

Sunday’s gem was the first career complete game for Sanchez, and he did it in just his fifth MLB start. In case you’re wondering, that’s 131 fewer starts than it took Nola to register one. Yes, I’m finding fault even in one of the few positives to have come out of this series.

But even worse than the five losses in seven games were the injuries.

It all started when Zack Wheeler hurt his finger while putting on his pants, upon which he immediately entered the pantheon of weird injuries. His absence from the series was huge, and let’s all cross our fingers (and keep them away from our pants) that he can return this week.

Things got even worse on Saturday. The Phils actually managed to win that game, but Spencer Howard left early with arm troubles, and then both J.T. Realmuto and Rhys Hoskins were lost to injury later in the game. Neither played in the final three games of the series, and we’re all awaiting MRI results with bated breath to see just how badly this will all turn out.

Essentially, we may have already seen the end of the 2020 Phillies during this disaster of a series.

Still, let’s hope that some or all of the walking wounded can return at some point for a club that desperately needs them. The Phils are 23-23 with 14 games left to play. Miraculously, they’d still make the expanded playoff field if the postseason started today, but they’ve obviously got to turn things around in a hurry. They also can’t be starting Rafael Marchan anymore, fun tweets aside.

Oh, and Scott Kingery came back and hit a home run. His season average is all the way up to .135 now.

Even though the Phillies had a 36-34 edge in runs scored during the series, courtesy of a couple of blowouts, they just continue to struggle in close games. The offense also went cold in the final three contests, managing just 11 hits during that time. And things won’t be getting any better if Realmuto and/or Hoskins are out for a substantial amount of time.

The trip to Miami has hobbled the Philadelphia Phillies, but they still have a chance to recover. With 11 games in the next 9 days, it has to be immediate, or it will be another lost baseball season around these parts.