Abel struggles early as Phillies fall to Padres in Game 1 of doubleheader, 6-4

Nick Pivetta walked off the mound in the seventh inning at Citizens Bank Park on Wednesday and didn’t tip his cap. Maybe he should have. Because for the first time in his career — a career that started right here in Philadelphia — he looked every bit like the pitcher the Phillies once hoped he’d become.

Now wearing Padres brown and gold, Pivetta allowed just one run over seven innings and struck out six as San Diego held off the Phillies, 6-4, in the opener of a doubleheader. It was his ninth win of the season. He never won more than seven in any of his four years in Philadelphia.

Of course it wasn’t just the Nick Pivetta Revenge Tour. There was also the Manny Machado Problem.

With Phillies rookie Mick Abel fighting his command,. and losing the battle, the Padres jumped on him for five runs in the second inning, punctuated by a bases-clearing double from Machado off a center-cut curveball. That shot turned a 2-0 Padres lead into a 5-0 hole and ended Abel’s afternoon after just 1 2/3 innings.

The outing was Abel’s second straight rough one. He walked five — including four in the second inning alone — and three of them came around to score. That included back-to-back walks to Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill with the bases loaded. Luis Arraez added another bases-loaded walk in the fourth off Michael Rucker. San Diego scored half of its six runs without putting a ball in play.

“I’m not really sure what happened there,” manager Rob Thomson told reporters. “But he did lose command, lost control.”

Abel’s slider didn’t have bite. His fastball missed spots. And when he tried to groove a 1-2 pitch to Machado to stop the bleeding, it ended up in the left-center gap. One curveball, three more runs. One more lesson.

The Phillies made things interesting late. Kyle Schwarber broke up the shutout with a solo homer — his 26th — in the sixth. In the seventh, they tacked on two more, then scratched across a run in the ninth. With two outs, Trea Turner drilled a single to center. Brandon Marsh went first to third on the play and was initially called out on a head-first slide. A replay overturned the call and gave the Phillies runners at the corners — and one last hope.

But Robert Suarez fired a fastball past Schwarber to close it out and earn his 24th save in 27 tries.

So instead of a rally, it was a reminder. The Phillies saw what Nick Pivetta looks like when everything clicks. They saw what Mick Abel looks like when nothing does. And they saw another one slip away on a long day at the ballpark.

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