Trea Turner has had a restless past few nights with the birth of his second son, but it was the rest of the Phillies’ offense — not Tatum Trea’s dad — that looked sleep-deprived Friday night.
Turner was reinstated from the paternity list and did not seem to have missed a beat after three days off, going 2-for-3 with a homer, walk, two runs and a stolen base in his first game as a father of two. But the offense around him recorded just three more hits, and once the bullpen put the Phillies in a hole after Cristopher Sánchez’s five shutout innings, the group couldn’t recover.
Turner got the scoring started right out of the gate, homering for his eighth long ball in eight games, perhaps aided immediately by Dad Strength.
It gave the Phillies a 1-0 lead after fellow middle infielder Bryson Stott made another incredible play in a season that could earn him some hardware.
Turner walked in the third before stealing his 26th bag — still without an unsuccessful attempt — and scoring on a Bryce Harper RBI single. The red-hot shortstop then singled in the fifth for his second hit of the ballgame.
But what happened shortly thereafter was the theme for the night. Harper walked to put two on with two outs, and up stepped Nick Castellanos, who lifted the first pitch of the at bat to left for a lazy flyout to end the threat.
It might’ve helped to take a pitch in that spot, but Castellanos carried the exact same approach into a similar spot in the seventh. Batting with the bases loaded and two outs — off another Harper walk, this one on four pitches — Castellanos attacked the very first pitch, bouncing it to short for a lazy force-out to end that threat as well.
And what happened in between ruined the margin for error. After Sánchez had tossed five scoreless frames, Rob Thomson opted to pull the southpaw at only 82 pitches, and the decision backfired.
Jesús Sánchez pinch hit for Garrett Hampson as the tying run with two outs, and Seranthony Domínguez hung him a slider that had no chance of staying in the yard.
Jacob Stallings then led off the seventh by punishing an upper-cut fastball from Matt Strahm, and just like that, Miami was in front.
The Phillies went down in order in the eighth and ninth innings to drop the series opener. The good news: Chicago also lost on Friday, meaning the 77-63 Phillies still hold a two-game lead over the Cubs for the National League’s top Wild Card spot. The bad news: The playoff margin shrunk a little, with their lead over the Marlins — winners of seven of eight — down to 4 1/2.
Ticket IQ Next Game
- Saturday, Sept. 9 vs. Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park
- 6:05 p.m. EDT
- TV: NBC Sports Philadelphia
- Radio: SportsRadio 94 WIP, WTTM 1680 (Spanish)
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