It didn’t explain the game.
The Phillies’ 5-2 loss to Atlanta was really a collection of smaller failures, spread across six innings: a defensive mistake that allowed an inning to grow, two opportunities against Chris Sale that produced nothing, and a bullpen decision that raises a more interesting question than whether Orion Kerkering should have pitched the eighth.
Cristopher Sánchez understood the stakes.
“You feel it here when it’s a playoff game,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
It wasn’t October. But with the Phillies chasing Atlanta in the National League East, these were the kind of moments that October tends to expose.
1. Harper’s mistake changed the second inning
Sánchez already had trouble brewing when Austin Riley punched a one-out single through the right side in the second.
Lane Thomas initially hesitated at second before Braves third-base coach Fredi González sent him. Bryce Harper charged from right field and appeared ready to attempt a throw home.
He never got the chance.
The ball skipped past Harper. Thomas scored and Dubón advanced from first to third. Whether Harper actually could have thrown Thomas out is impossible to know — MLB.com noted the same uncertainty — but the error changed everything that followed.
Ha-Seong Kim could now score Dubón with a ground ball. Ronald Acuña Jr. followed with a two-out RBI single.
Three runs.
And that was it against Sánchez.
Atlanta didn’t score against him in any of his other five innings. He kept the Phillies close enough for the offense to respond, which made the way the second inning expanded particularly costly.
Against an ordinary starter, maybe three early runs are recoverable.
Against Sale, every extra run changes the game.
2. The Phillies got their opportunities against Sale — and wasted them
Alec Bohm nearly kept Philadelphia in the game himself.
His RBI double in the second cut Atlanta’s lead to 3-1. His solo homer in the fourth made it 3-2.
Then the Phillies finally got Sale into the kind of spots they had been waiting for.
J.T. Realmuto walked in the fifth. Trea Turner doubled with two outs, putting runners at second and third for Harper.
Sale escaped when Harper popped out.
One inning later, Luis Arraez opened the sixth with a double.
This time, Philadelphia couldn’t even move him.
Bohm grounded out before Edmundo Sosa and Bryan De La Cruz struck out. The Phillies finished 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
“He did what all the greats do and found his way out of it,” Bohm said afterward, as quoted by The Inquirer. “Made pitches.”
That was the difference.
The Phillies had Sale wobbling without ever knocking him over.
Beginning with the three outs after Arraez’s double, Atlanta pitching retired the final 12 Phillies hitters in succession. Didier Fuentes handled the seventh and eighth before Raisel Iglesias closed it in the ninth.
By then, Philadelphia’s best chances had already disappeared.
3. Maybe the McFarlane-Kerkering question isn’t about reversing them
Don Mattingly gave Alex McFarlane the seventh with the Phillies trailing 3-2.
Look at whom the rookie faced: Michael Harris II, Acuña, Drake Baldwin and Ozzie Albies.
Look at how he handled them.
Eight pitches.
Eight strikes.
Acuña reached on a softly hit infield single. Nobody else reached.
“He’s really good — I’m glad he’s on our team,” Bohm said of McFarlane, according to On Pattison. Bohm also called the rookie’s stuff “elite.”
McFarlane’s ERA dropped to 0.79 through 11 major-league appearances. Mattingly acknowledged afterward that the rookie has been “working his way up” the bullpen hierarchy.
Then his night was over.
That leads naturally to the question: Would it have made more sense to use Kerkering in the seventh and save McFarlane for the eighth?
Maybe.
But that’s too simple.
McFarlane had just handled Harris, Acuña, Baldwin and Albies. On paper, that was every bit as dangerous — perhaps more so — than what awaited in the eighth.
The better question is why McFarlane had to leave at all.
He had thrown eight pitches. Every one was a strike. Nothing about the inning suggested fatigue, diminished stuff or command problems.
Kerkering entered instead.
He retired Matt Olson, then appeared to have pinch-hitter Mike Yastrzemski struck out on a check swing before eventually walking him. Dubón followed.
Kerkering landed a first-pitch sweeper for a strike. He threw another.
This one stayed over the plate.
Dubón hit it into the left-field seats and a 3-2 game became 5-2. Kerkering entered the night with a 7.02 ERA since the All-Star break and has now allowed at least one run in five of his last six appearances.
Mattingly defended him afterward.
“The stuff’s plenty good enough,” Mattingly told reporters. “He’s just got to make pitches.”
Fair enough.
The Phillies still need Kerkering. September isn’t the time to bury an arm they may require in October.
But it is the time to reconsider rigid bullpen roles, and a stretch beyond one inning is something that needs to be considered for McFarlane.
Friday wasn’t necessarily evidence that McFarlane should have pitched the eighth instead of the seventh.
It may have been evidence that, on eight perfect strikes, there didn’t need to be an “instead.”
Maybe the Phillies’ mistake wasn’t where they used McFarlane.
Maybe it was deciding they had seen enough.
More Phillies Coverage
Loading Phillies schedule...
Loading NL East standings...
