Well, that wasn’t the plan.
The Phillies brought a five-game win streak and a suitcase full of momentum into Miami. They left Tuesday night with both things snapped — and a little clubhouse drama sprinkled in for good measure.
The Marlins, losers of five straight at home, played like the team with something to prove, riding long balls from Eric Wagaman and Jesús Sánchez to an 8–3 win over Philadelphia at loanDepot park. It was a night that started oddly — and only got messier for the Phils from there.
Let’s start with the lineup card. For the first time in 236 games, Nick Castellanos wasn’t in it. Phillies skipper Rob Thomson benched him following what the team called “an inappropriate comment” after Castellanos was pulled for defense late in Monday’s series opener. The streak is over. So, apparently, is the patience.
On the field, the game unraveled in the sixth. With the score tied 2–2, Jesús Luzardo put two runners aboard, and Tanner Banks couldn’t bail him out. Miami strung together a productive out, a slicing RBI triple from Javier Sanoja, and a sharp single from Xavier Edwards to jump ahead 5–3.
From there, the Marlins kept piling on. Sánchez launched a no-doubter in the seventh off Joe Ross, and by the eighth, Miami had tacked on two more.
The Phillies weren’t silent, but they weren’t sharp either. Johan Rojas and Kyle Schwarber each delivered RBI singles in the fifth to briefly take a 3–2 lead. But the offense stalled and the bullpen buckled.
Freddy Tarnok got the win for Miami with a clean sixth, while Luzardo, the former Marlins lefty now in Phillies red, gave up four runs on six hits over five-plus innings. He walked four and struck out four in a jittery return to South Florida.
For 236 games, Nick Castellanos was a constant in the Phillies' lineup, through slumps, surges, sweeps, and skid marks. That streak came to a screeching halt Tuesday night in Miami, not because of an injury, but because of a conversation that went one step too far.
Castellanos was absent from the starting nine, and the game entirely. The absence wasn’t performance-related. It was disciplinary.
One night earlier, Castellanos was lifted for a defensive replacement in the eighth inning of a 5–2 win. He didn’t like it. He voiced his displeasure to manager Rob Thomson, perhaps a little too strongly. By Tuesday afternoon, the message from the manager’s office was clear: words have consequences, even for everyday players.
With the benching, Castellanos’ run of 236 consecutive starts — the second-longest active streak in baseball behind Atlanta’s Matt Olson (405) — officially ended.
“I wasn’t happy about it,” Castellanos said pregame, referring to Monday’s substitution. “Spoke my mind. He said I crossed a line. So my punishment is I’m not playing.”
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