Categories: 2023 Postgame Recaps

Bryce Harper homers, but Phillies lose as Bailey Falter falters

Bryce Harper and the Phillies lost Saturday.(Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire)

Final Score: Red Sox 7, Phillies 4

Bryce Harper hit his first home run of the season Saturday, but it wasn’t enough for baseball’s coldest team — the Philadelphia Phillies — to upend baseball’s hottest team, the Boston Red Sox.

And while it’s certainly not the only problem that the Phillies are dealing with, poor starting pitching, Bailey Falter faltered this evening, continues to haunt the Phillies.

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Alec Bohm got the scoring started in the home half of the second inning. After J.T. Realmuto flew out to the warning track — narrowly missing a two-run home run — Bohm drove Bryson Stott in with an RBI single.

The lead was short lived, however.

After retiring the first nine batters he faced, Falter didn’t make it out of the fourth inning. In all, Falter gave up six hits and five runs in the third inning, with the most notable blow coming on a two-run double by Rafael Devers:

In the home half of the fourth inning, the Phillies would get one run back when Edmundo Sosa flared a broken-bat single into right field on the 11th pitch of his at-bat against Corey Kluber, scoring Bohm.

But the Phillies missed a chance for a big inning, with Kyle Schwarber flying out just shy of the warning track to end the inning, stranding Sosa and Brandon Marsh.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Phillies inched closer, as Bryce Harper hit a Kluber pitch 396 feet for his first home run of the season:

But with every step forward the Phillies took Saturday, two steps back immediately followed.

In what was already his 16th appearance of 2023 season, Connor Brogdon allowed two runs to cross the plate in the top of the sixth inning on a Rob Refsnyder two-run double into the left-field corner.

Trea Turner would homer in the bottom of the seventh — one of two extra-base hits on the night — but that wasn’t enough for the Phillies to overcome poor pitching.

With the loss, the Phillies have now dropped six games in a row, and sit at 15-19 on the season. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are now winners of eight consecutive games, and are 21-14.

The Phillies and Red Sox will wrap up their three-game series Sunday, with Taijuan Walker and Tanner Houck slated to square off.

Shibe Vintage Sports Notes

Bailey Falter‘s ERA on the season now sits at 5.75 after his fourth-inning meltdown Saturday. Rob Thomson suggested before the game that Falter wasn’t pitching for his spot in the rotation, even as Nick Nelson continues to build up. But it increasingly feels like Falter shouldn’t be facing a team more than once through the order, so something has to give.
This isn’t you father’s Corey Kluber. In the second game of the Red Sox-Phillies series, the two-time AL Cy Young Award winner allowed seven hits and three runs over five innings. The 37-year-old has a 6.29 ERA in 2023.

With his home run Saturday, Bryce Harper now has 286 career home runs. That ties him with J.D. Martinez for 13th among active players, and puts him just one home run behind Manny Machado.
43,832 was the attendance for this evening’s Red Sox-Phillies game, the second sellout in as many nights.

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