Only death can make the pain stop: Diamondbacks 5, Phillies 1

At a funereal Citizens Bank Park, a skeleton crew of maybe 50 fans came to watch what they must have thought was actually a community theater version of "Waiting for Harper" only, as in the play, Harper never makes an appearance. Perhaps they need to wait a little longer. A few more bananas. A few more monkeys.

During what fans actually watched, there was a baseball game and MLB's Sisyphus, Jerad Eickhoff, endured yet another game without a win, despite pitching well. It was Eickhoffean: six innings pitched, and one run surrendered. Two strikeouts and 3 walks. In the modern day MLB with starting pitchers going fewer and fewer innings, that is a pretty good outing. You really can't ask for more.

The Phillies could not score, though. Just one run all day in the sixth on a Franco walk, a Saunders double, and a Knapp sacrifice fly.

The Diamondbacks scored their first run in the third off Eickhoff on a Jake Lamb single. Later, they picked up four in the seventh after the Phillies tied it. Edubray Ramos and Casey Fien combined to give up a run on a single to Daniel Descalso, two runs on a double to Paul Goldschmidt, and the final run on a Brandon Drury single.

Eickhoff battled through a long first inning -- twenty-seven pitches -- to hang on for his quality start. That was probably the highlight performance for the Phillies all day.

In the end, it was more of the same: not enough timely hitting and poor bullpennery today. Tomorrow it will be something else, or in a different combination.

This just is not a talented team, and it is painful and completely miserable to watch. I am sorry for all of us and for the parts of this team that are good. Kids that used to love baseball are learning to ignore this team with each miserable year that this goes on, including mine. It looked like a Marlins home game today on TV. I'd peg attendance at 146, excluding ushers and hot dog vendors.

See you tomorrow? Uh, yeah...I have, you know, stuff to do. Important stuff.

Source: FanGraphs