The Threshold of Hell: Rockies 14, Phillies 0

Did you think that the first two games of the Rockies series were bad? Did you think that the Phillies season couldn’t possibly get any worse?

After Monday night’s 10-1 bludgeoning, and Tuesday night’s 10-4 horror show, the Phillies decided to make it a trilogy of atrocity on Wednesday by losing to the Rockies by a score of 14-0.

The Phillies didn’t produce much offense in this one. They had only four hits and did an excellent job of spacing those hits out over the game so at no point did they ever have anything even remotely close to a rally. However, they did manage to set a record in this game when the first eight(!) batters of the game struck out against Rockies starter German Marquez.

In a way, that record is slightly cheering. After all, there are lots of baseball teams that are bad, but only truly special teams can find a way to be record-setting bad.

As for the pitching, we’ve heard a lot about how great Nick Pivetta’s peripheral numbers are, and I realize that in 2018, teams don’t care as much about traditional stats. But it wasn’t that long ago that a 7-14 record and 4.77 ERA would get a player tarred and feathered rather than discussed as part of a bright future.

The fifth inning was truly wondrous as a combination of Pivetta and Victor Arano surrendered three Rockies home runs, leading to seven runs. The Phillies have had quite a few awful innings in 2018, so it’s somewhat impressive that they’re able to have a candidate for “worst inning of the year” this late in the season.

For those who are gluttons for punishment, this series will wrap up on Thursday afternoon at 3:05. Can the Phillies possibly sink any lower? I doubt it. They’ll probably just lose a mundane game by a score of 5-2 or something. Hooray!