Categories: 2023 Postgame Recaps

Defense, Nola have rough night, offense blows opportunities in loss to Pirates

Nick Castellanos went 0-for-5 with three threat-ending strikeouts on Saturday. (Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire),

When a starting pitcher and a collective defense both struggle at the same time, it can sometimes be fun to pin the blame on one or the other or argue which one was sunk and which one did the sinking in that team’s (likely) losing effort.

Sometimes, the answer is “both,” and that’s that.

That was the case on Saturday night in Pittsburgh. Aaron Nola certainly didn’t have his best stuff, but neither did his defense, but neither did Nola, but neither did his defense, while the Phillies blew myriad scoring opportunities. That combination of things is hard to overcome; the Phillies lost 7-6.

The ugliness began in the bottom of the fourth, after Nola had allowed his MLB-leading 24th homer of the season an inning earlier and Brandon Marsh erased that deficit with a bases-clearing double, scoring for a 4-1 lead on Jake Cave’s ensuing two-bagger.

Ji-man Choi led off the inning by lining a ball to right, where Nick Castellanos failed to make up for what’s been a dreadful month of July offensively, instead spinning himself around and letting the ball trickle off his glove for a double that should’ve been an error.

Choi scored on an RBI double from Endy Rodríguez, who himself later scored on a two-out dribbler through the right side to cut the lead to one.

Then, in the fourth, a single and walk put runners on first and second with one out for Henry Davis. Davis sent a weak grounder to Bryce Harper at first base, but Harper booted it, preventing a double play, before failing to pick it up cleanly and letting everyone reach safely.

Things really spiraled the next at bat.

Rodríguez scored once more on an Alika Williams RBI single that ended Nola’s night. His line score was all over the place: 4 2/3 innings, nine hits, seven runs (five earned), three walks, six strikeouts and a homer.

His defense didn’t help his case; true. Also true: Many of those miscues scored runners that Nola himself allowed to reach base in the first place, and when the defense got him into jams, he simply couldn’t work his way out, instead letting it snowball.

Marsh began as the hero with the three-run double, then negated much of that work with the fifth-inning miscue. He had a chance to swing the pendulum back in his favor in the sixth, when he came up with the bases loaded and nobody out.

But Marsh grounded into a force out, and the only run the Phillies scored that inning came on a two-out walk from Kyle Schwarber.

Nick Castellanos ended the inning with a strikeout — the same way he ended two other innings (the third and eighth) with two on base, which all came after a double play in the first. Castellanos’ 0-for-5, three-strikeout night brought his July 2023 to lows he never even saw in his career-worst 2022 season.

The Phillies put the tying run 90 feet away the ninth, when Alec Bohm walked and Bryson Stott singled the pinch-running Edmundo Sosa to third. (It was Stott’s third hit of the day). But J.T. Realmuto grounded into a gut-punching, game-ending double play to leave Sosa there for a brutal loss that was about as bad on all fronts as one could possibly draw it up.

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