Too little, too late: Marlins 9, Phillies 6

Trevor Rogers shut down the Phillies offense the last time he saw them. With the lineup missing Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto and Didi Gregorius this time, the chances of his dominating the lineup again were pretty good. Meanwhile, the Phillies sent Zach Eflin out to the mound to try and contain a Marlins lineup that seems to morph into one of the best lineups of all time when they see the Phillies.

Tonight wasn’t much different.

Were you online tonight, you might have seen this.

The Phillies would waste no time testing this prediction by getting the first two hitters on base via walks by Rogers. Jean Segura would fly out to put runners on the corners with one out and Rhys Hoskins stepping to the plate. The result? You guessed it, a double play. The ominous drums were beginning their beat.

In the second inning, the Phillies pushed a run across when Brad Miller walked, stole second, then came home on a single by Ronald Torreyes. Eflin gave the lead up right away in the bottom of the second by walking Brian Anderson, giving up a ground rule double to Corey Dickerson, then a sacrifice fly to Sandy Leon. However, in the top of the third, the Phillies rinsed and repeated their baserunning perfection again by seeing Jean Segura steal second with two outs, then scoring on a ground rule double by Hoskins, taking the lead at 2-1. Eflin, though, couldn’t hold on to it, giving up another run in the bottom of the third on back-to-back doubles by Miguel Rojas and Jesus Aguilar.

That’s how the score stayed until the bottom of the sixth when the Marlins got two men on in front of Corey Dickerson, who continued his Philly-killing by ripping a two run, one out triple.

After that, the floodgates were opened. The bottom of the seventh saw Brandon Kintzler trying to stave off the onslaught, but ultimately failing to do so. Garrett Cooper singled on the first pitch of the inning, then moved to second when Rojas was hit by a pitch. Aguilar singled to score Cooper and move Rojas to second. Adam Duvall followed and got a ball in his nitro zone.

Kintzler was gone, but it didn’t matter. Miami would tack on another in the eighth inning, putting the game mostly out of reach. The Phillies would show a little fire in the ninth, the first they’ve shown in a while, sparked by Brad Miller’s 100th home run the day after his 99th. Andrew McCutchen would knock one in, Odubel Herrera would ground into a run scoring fielder’s choice, but again, the deficit was too much to overcome.

They’ll go back at it again tomorrow night, hopefully with a different result.