Blood Everywhere: Marlins 14, Phillies 5

The bleeding, it does not stop.

— Chris Branch (@ChrisBranchTNJ) May 22, 2014

This is a Phillies beat writer in the eighth inning, not the intro to the memoirs of a warlord. So you can guess how this one went.

The Phillies punched through early, thanks to an overturned call at first base on what appeared to be a ground out by Chooch (batting second). However, after a thumbs up from the subterranean lab full of furious video techs in white coats, Ryne Sandberg fired off a challenge and Chooch got to stay out there.

After a Chase Utley fly-out, the challenge proved most effective as Ryan Howard doubled in his catcher, and was himself knocked in by a Marlon Byrd single.

So KK was starting things with a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first, but it wasn't long before, well. You know.

Bob McClure has been talking to Kendrick about getting more aggressive, and Kyle aggressively gave up a one-out double to Derek Dietrich and aggressively walked Giancarlo Stanton before taking a breath and re-channeling his aggression into an RBI single for Casey McGehee. Garrett Jones sac-flied in the tying run, and the Phillies' early offense was burned off the face of the earth.

Kyle flickered through a 1-2-3 second before a one-out triple by Dietrich in the third, scoring on a Stanton ground-out and giving the Fish a smelly 3-2 lead.

But the Phillies, after three innings, were astonishingly not done. In the top of the fourth, Marlon Byrd led off with a single and his 19th multi-hit game of the year. Cody Asche followed with a sharp grounder that evaded the infielders and Domonic Brown accidentally sacrificed bunted everyone one base to the left. With only Tony Gwynn, Jr. between a two-out Kyle Kendrick at-bat with RISP, the stakes were as high as can be.

Gwynn sent an RBI single to right and Byrd came in to even things at three, which proved fateful, because Kyle stepped in and became who he was born to be by grounding into a double play. He vaunted out to the mound in the bottom of the inning and allowed a lead-off double to Garrett Jones, who got to third on a Jarrod Saltalamacchia fly out, where he watched Kyle go 0-2 on Ed Lucas before issuing him a free pass.

Marcell Ozuna punched a single that scored Jones, and that brought up the pitcher, Nathan Eovaldi. Chooch decided to go to third on Eovaldi's bunt for some reason, and that led to another appearance from Bob McClure's mustache, now with the bases pulsating and only one out. McClure worked his usual magic and the next batter, Christian Yelich, knocked an RBI single to make it 5-3.

Some days, I wish the Kendrick to Japan trade actually happened.

— The Good Phight (@TheGoodPhight) May 22, 2014

Derek Dietrich struck out, which put Kyle one Giancarlo Stanton-with-RISP away from getting out of the inning with only many hits and runs given up.

Stanton grounded out to Ryan Howard and the game, somehow only in the fifth inning, continued.

Jimmy Rollins opened the inning by tying Richie Ashburn for second place on the all-time Phillies hit list with 2,217. Chase Utley nubbed an infield single and Marlon Byrd drew a walk, with Carlos Ruiz and Ryan Howard making outs in between. Cody Asche stepped in with the bases loaded and a chance to win some lady $10,000 in the home run payoff inning. He lined a sure double in the gap to score two runs, and in an alternate universe, that happened. In this one, things lined up for Giancarlo Stanton to do this.

[Thank you Bill]

Kyle wound up lasting 5.2 innings and earning all six of the Marlins' runs. Mario Hollands finished off that last 0.1, and then Jeff Manship came in and proved why he wasn't in the rotation on a good team somewhere. After two quick outs in the seventh, sparks started spewing out of the Manship's central console and the whole thing came crashing down. Garrett Jones singled harmlessly, Saltalamacchia walked, Lucas singled, and with the bases loaded, Marcell Ozuna grand slammed the Marlins home run sculpture into action. 10-3, Fish.

Honestly, who the hell even cares what happened next.

• Dom Brown hit a garbage time two-run home run to make it 10-5.
• Luis Garcia relieved Manship and walked four Marlins, pushing their 11th run across himself.
• Saltalamacchia made this the biggest amount of runs given up on the year for the Phillies by knocking in the 12th and 13th runs for Miami.
• By the eighth, Ryne Sandberg had replaced the majority of his infield and some of his outfield with bench players, considering the rest of the game not worth the energy for his starters and the chances of a comeback so nonexistent that there was no harm in using every player.
• A 14th run got across at some point.
• Reid Brignac Leads off the Ninth: The Phillies 2014 DVD Yearbook
• The Marlins had 14 hits. The Phillies also had 14 hits. The final score was 14-5.
• The Phillies are 0-7 on Wednesdays.

Source: FanGraphs