Somehow, none of that produced the most troubling number in their 6-3 loss to the Mets.
The number was 1-for-18.
That was the combined performance of Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Luis Arraez and Alec Bohm—the first five hitters in a lineup expected to carry the Phillies through precisely this kind of September game.
Instead, Philadelphia received all three of its runs from Bryson Stott, Edmundo Sosa and Derek Hill. The supporting cast produced. The center of the order largely disappeared.
That imbalance turned a messy but manageable pitching night into a missed opportunity with immediate postseason consequences.
The Phillies fell to 85-69 and into a three-way tie with the Cubs and Padres for the National League’s three Wild Card positions. Chicago also lost Friday, while San Diego won for the 11th time in 12 games to erase what had recently been a comfortable Philadelphia advantage.
Eight games remain.
There is no longer any separation between hosting a Wild Card Series, traveling for one and spending the final week nervously monitoring scores from around the league. The Phillies remain positioned to reach October, but their margin for error has disappeared.
Friday’s game began badly enough to become predictable.
Tim Mayza opened the bottom of the first by allowing a leadoff double to Francisco Lindor. The Mets loaded the bases, Carson Benge drove home the first run with a single and Mayza departed after recording only one out.
Recently acquired José Urquidy entered and surrendered a two-run single to A.J. Ewing. Both runners were inherited, leaving all three runs charged to Mayza.
Before the Phillies could escape the first inning, they were trailing 3-0.
Then something unexpected happened.
Urquidy stabilized everything.
The right-hander, claimed off waivers from the White Sox on Thursday, completed 4⅔ scoreless innings and struck out six. He worked out of the opening jam without allowing the inning to become catastrophic and carried the Phillies into the sixth with a chance to recover.
Four Philadelphia pitchers covered eight innings. Urquidy and Tanner Banks combined for 6⅔ scoreless frames. Mayza and Orion Kerkering combined for the other 1⅓ innings and allowed all six New York runs.
There is the entire pitching performance in one peculiar split: nearly seven innings without damage surrounded by two three-run eruptions.
For all the understandable concern surrounding the Phillies’ pitching plan, it functioned well enough between those two breakdowns to keep the game within reach.
The lineup did not take advantage.
Stott doubled home Sosa in the second inning. Sosa then homered in the sixth, reducing New York’s lead to 3-2. He finished 3-for-3 and continued an extraordinary late-season stretch. Since Aug. 1, Sosa is batting .396 with three home runs, 18 RBIs and a 1.171 OPS across 52 plate appearances.
That is one of the stranger developments within this Philadelphia offense. Sosa, who does not play every day, has become one of its most dangerous hitters while several of its most important bats continue alternating productive stretches with extended silence.
The Phillies finished 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. Their runs came on Stott’s double and solo homers from Sosa and Hill. They never assembled the sustained inning that forces a pitcher to labor, exposes the weaker portion of a bullpen or makes a manager uncomfortable.
They scored three times but never created sustained pressure.
New York did.
With the Phillies within one run in the sixth, Kerkering allowed consecutive singles before facing Juan Soto. The Mets star drove a three-run homer to right, transforming a competitive 3-2 game into a 6-2 deficit with one swing.
Hill answered with a solo homer in the seventh. It was useful. It was also lonely.
That became the evening’s theme: one productive swing surrounded by too little else.
Much will be made of the Phillies allowing two separate three-run innings. The criticism is warranted. Mayza failed to complete the opener assignment, and Kerkering could not contain the game after Philadelphia had pulled within one.
But bullpen games are rarely designed to be elegant. The Phillies knew they were asking a compromised pitching staff to manufacture 27 outs without a traditional starter. Urquidy gave them considerably more than could reasonably have been expected from someone who joined the organization one day earlier.
The offense needed to compensate. Instead, Philadelphia’s first five hitters produced one hit in 18 at-bats.
That is not a bullpen-construction problem. It is not an injury problem. It is not something interim manager Don Mattingly can solve by choosing a different matchup.
It is a stars-must-be-stars problem.
The urgency shifts to Saturday, when Andrew Painter is scheduled to face Mets right-hander Christian Scott. Painter enters another significant start carrying enormous ability and the inconsistencies of a young pitcher learning in the middle of a playoff race.
The Phillies should not require him to be perfect.
They need Schwarber, Turner, Harper, Arraez and Bohm to ensure he does not have to be.
Philadelphia’s pitching arrangement failed in two loud moments Friday. Its most accomplished hitters failed quietly across nine innings.
With eight games remaining and three teams sharing the same record, quiet failures count exactly the same.
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