Ty Kelly isn’t anybody you knew before he joined the Phillies. It seems likely you may not remember him a few years from now. But for the last couple of days, he’s been the charge that has kept this team in what are inevitable losses.
Yeah, the lede was about Ty Kelly. They REALLY lost this one.
It depends on your personal taste in losing, I suppose. If you feel blowouts are harder to take than close ones, than this was the series for you. Whether it’s the starting pitching, bullpen, or offense, at least one thing on this team just doesn’t work every day. And there’s no hands-on, fatherly “Sure, I can fix this” solution.
Fans and their fathers who hopefully got all their bonding out of the way early on this Father’s Day afternoon got to watch Ben Lively surrender three runs in the first, on a what-are-ya-gonna-do dinger from Paul Goldschmidt and another by Chris Owings. The Phillies offense got one back in the bottom half thanks to an Aaron Altherr home run and Maikel Franco chipped away with a solo shot in the second to make it 3-2. A Phillies rally in the third culminated only in a GIDP by Altherr that accidentally scored a run.
Then, with the score tied in the sixth, the TyBreaker stepped in.
Fresh off his defeat of Chris Sale days ago, the Phillies bench guy followed a Cameron Rupp walk and a Freddy Galvis single with the biggest Phillies hit of the day. Arizona starter Robbie Ray had just been chased and Kelly was the first batter J.J. Hoover would face. He greeted the reliever with a double that scored both Rupp and Galvis, until the umps took a second look at it and ruled Galvis out at the plate.
With a slim 4-3 lead, no one in the viewing audience believed this one was over.
And it wasn’t.
Phillies “closer” Hector Neris allowed three straight base runners in the top of the ninth, with a Gregor Blanco single tying the game. The Snakes took the lead and kept it the following inning when Jeanmar Gomez got homered off of and the Phillies offered little more than three consecutive pants-crappings at the plate in the bottom half of the tenth.
The positives? The Franco bomb. Lively holding on for six innings after getting banged up early. Odubel Herrera, Howie Kendrick, Altherr, and Galvis all had two hits. Par Neshek pitched and has a 0.67 ERA through 27 IP. Tommy Joseph’s 14-game hit streak.
But uh
The #D-backs have won 10 games since June 6
— Ben Harris (@byBenHarris) June 18, 2017
The #Phillies have won 10 games since May 7
Phillies lose 5-4 ... 8th time they've been swept, 4th in last 7 series.
— Corey Seidman (@CoreySeidmanCSN) June 18, 2017
They're 22-46. No NL team since 2013 Marlins worse thru first 68.
Another one-run loss for #Phillies. They've played 27 one-run games and Sunday was their 17th one-run loss, both easily the most in MLB.
— Meghan Montemurro (@M_Montemurro) June 18, 2017
Yeah.