PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies celebrated mudders’ day in Philadelphia Sunday.
On a cold and dreary afternoon, the Dodgers fell behind 6-2 in the third inning, came back on the strength of a five-RBI day from Teoscar Hernandez to take a late lead but their bullpen couldn’t hold it, losing to the Phillies, 8-7.
The Phillies took two of three in the soldout weekend series, handing the Dodgers their first two losses of the season, both in one-run games.
“It’s two evenly-matched teams,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Two evenly-matched teams, good series, and we just didn’t do some fundamental things well today, whether it be on the pitching side, on the defensive side, the baserunning side, to give us a chance to win a series.”
The biggest fundamental flaw on Sunday was Tyler Glasnow’s inability to adapt to the conditions.
The Dodgers starter on the soggy spring afternoon was clearly uncomfortable when a light rain picked up during the third inning. The tall right-hander repeatedly kicked at the pad on the back of the pitcher’s mound to clean mud out of his cleats, fussed with the rosin bag and just generally showed the body language of someone who clearly didn’t want to be outside in the East Coast elements.
“I think once I had a couple, maybe, poorly-gripped balls, I think I lost my aggression and rhythm, I guess, within the mound,” Glasnow said. “I think I just lost some feel and then that kind of compounded into a bad inning.
“I couldn’t be aggressive. I think I couldn’t really use everything I wanted to. I think it was just a rough day.”
He walked the first three batters he faced in the third to load the bases with no outs. Bryce Harper drove in one run with a soft single to left field, and another scored on a wild pitch by Glasnow.
“I do think that he was having trouble with the mound,” Roberts said. “He was having trouble with the rosin because of the conditions. He just couldn’t reset and regroup to kind of slow the game down, and it just went sideways on us.”
After another walk, re-loaded the bases, Roberts pulled Glasnow. He had thrown 60 pitches, hit the strike zone with fewer than half (28) and failed to retire any of the five hitters he faced in that third inning.
Lefty reliever Alex Vesia replaced him, and Nick Castellanos launched his first pitch into the left-field seats for a grand slam that gave the Phillies a 6-2 lead.
“The weather – it’s a factor,” Roberts said. “Every pitcher that took the mound today had to deal with it, and it’s unfortunate, but we’ve still got to find ways to – we still walked 10 guys today, and they didn’t walk anywhere near that (11-2 actually). And it’s tough to win a game when you walk 10 guys, it really is.”
The only ray of sunshine for most of the cloudy day for the Dodgers was Hernandez. He drove in their first four runs, hitting a two-run home run in the first inning, a solo homer in the fourth, and a double in the fifth to drive in another run.
While Hernandez was 3 for 3 against Phillies starter Cristopher Sanchez, the rest of the Dodgers were 3 for 23 with nine strikeouts – including three strikeouts in three at-bats by Shohei Ohtani. The Phillies pitchers handled the National League’s reigning MVP in the three-game series, holding him to 1 for 11.
“I was trying to get a little bit more space between home plate and the batter’s box, just so I can get more space to get the sinker,” Hernandez said of making an adjustment in his stance against Sanchez. “I got some out over the plate, and just trying to put it in play, see what happens, and I got good results.
“He wasn’t making a lot of mistakes. He made it to me, and I was just ready for it.”
Hernandez kept the Dodgers close and Phillies reliever Jordan Romano gave up a leadoff single to Andy Pages in the seventh and walked Ohtani. Mookie Betts doubled to drive in one run, and Hernandez’s sacrifice fly tied the game with his fifth RBI of the afternoon. When Will Smith doubled high off the wall in right field, the go-ahead run scored.
The conditions had improved by then. Temperatures were still in the 50s, but the rain had passed. It didn’t matter. Blake Treinen looked vulnerable from the start of his inning.
Bryce Harper ripped a double to straightaway center field, the 107.4 mph drive over his head completely discombobulating Pages who turned the wrong way and was nowhere near the ball when it landed.
“Yeah, he took a bad read,” Roberts said. “It was a line drive, hit hard. I think he broke in, then broke toward right field and at that point in time he was beat by the baseball. It was just a tough read.”
After Treinen walked Max Kepler, he got Castellanos to fly out, but Bryson Stott singled over second baseman Tommy Edman’s outstretched glove to drive in the tying run. Edmundo Sosa hit a hard ground ball to Max Muncy but Edman’s throw to first base was in the dirt, Sosa just beating it out to avoid an inning-ending double play. That allowed the winning run to score.
“We know the team that we have. Especially from last year, we know we can get back into games easy when we’re losing by five, six runs,” Hernandez said of the Dodgers coming back from the 6-2 deficit to take the lead. “Because the way we take at-bats, we’re not taking at-bats for ourselves. It’s more for the team, just trying to get on base, keep the line moving, score runs inning by inning and just get it close.”
They couldn’t do it again after the Phillies regained the lead. The Dodgers went down in order in the eighth and ninth innings.