So this is how it ends. Not with a roar, not with a rally, but with Andrew McCutchen — a guy who used to get standing ovations in Philly — blooping a broken-bat flare-single into right field that sent Oneil Cruz lumbering, stumbling, and somehow scoring the go-ahead run to cap a Pirates sweep.
Yup. That’s where we are now. The first time the Pirates have swept the Phillies in a decade.
The Phillies dropped their fifth straight game and their ninth in ten tries on Sunday in Pittsburgh, falling 2-1 to a Pirates team that has become oddly good at looking like the '27 Yankees when the Phillies come to town. They didn’t just get beat, they got shut down, again, by 23-year-old Paul Skenes, who pitched like he invented the art of pitching itself.
Skenes was dazzling. Again. Seven and two-thirds, two hits, seven strikeouts, and zero earned runs. His ERA now sits at a video game-esque 1.88. But here’s the part that should sting even more for Phillies fans: He didn’t even get the win. Because, baseball.
Pirates manager Derek Shelton pulled Skenes with nobody on and two outs in the eighth, cue the boos raining down from PNC Park, a stadium not exactly known for outbursts of passion. Enter Braxton Ashcraft, a guy who sounds more like he should be starring in a Civil War reenactment than locking down the eighth and ninth against one of the best lineups in the National League.
But he did. Marsh walked. Marchán grounded out. Bohm bounced into a game-ending double play. And just like that, the sweep was complete.
On the Philly side, Cristopher Sánchez did exactly what a manager asks for during a losing streak: he shoved. Seven innings, five hits, two runs, nine strikeouts, and a loss to show for it. One of the runs came on a Jared Triolo double. The other came after Oneil Cruz walked to lead off the eighth and scored from second on McCutchen’s flare that turned into a Little League adventure around third.
Nick Castellanos made the throw home. Rafael Marchán made the tag. But the throw was just a smidge late and the inning, and eventually the game, slipped away.
So here we are, again, asking the same questions: Where has the offense gone? Why does a team this good — on paper — suddenly look like it forgot how to score runs with any sort of regularity? And how much longer before this slump turns into something more sinister?
The good news? They’re coming home. The bad news? So are the Cubs. And they’re leading the NL Central.
Zack Wheeler gets the ball Monday night. The Phillies will need more than a good start from him, though. They need to start hitting again. They need to start winning again. And they need to start making sure that “August baseball” still means something this year.
Because no one in red pinstripes was supposed to be scoreboard watching in June.
The distance between the Phillies and the NL East-leading Mets is now 4 1/2 games.
