Jhoan Duran Blows His First Game This Season, Phils Bats Strike Out 15 Times

For the first time this season, Jhoan Duran blew a game, a 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays, which featured a frustrating night for the offense, striking out 15 times, but because of Zack Wheeler's brilliance, the Phils had the lead in the ninth... now they look to win the series tomorrow. #RingTheBell #PhiladelphiaPhillies #MLBonX

Transcript

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Well, folks, probably the worst thing that could happen to a baseball game for your favorite team happened tonight for the Philadelphia Phillies. As we welcome in here on the 610 podcast, a blown save has unfortunately been the blemish now on Johan Duran's season. And first, I mean, we're not going after Duran on here. I'm not going to do that. It's his first blown save of the season. We'll have some things to talk about what led up to that, because I have a few opinions on that ninth inning there. But tonight was just a night where the Philadelphia Phillies looked totally inept at the plate. They get an RBI double by Brandon Marsh, two outs. His 12th double of the year. It's a 1-0 Phillies, so Zach Wheeler already gets to pitch with a lead. But as a whole tonight, the Phillies struck out 15 times. The only player that didn't strike out that had four at-bats tonight was actually Bryson Stott. Crawford didn't strike out either with two at bats, and Sosa had one. But that's neither here nor there. The bottom line is the Phillies' offense was embarrassing tonight. Fifteen strikeouts. Five hits, two walks, and amazingly they still have a chance to win the game. Again, they can thank their Csy Young-esque pitcher in Zach Wheeler, who has never won a Cy Young, by the way, which is total BS, especially when you see games like this in which he gives the team that I don't why can't they hit for him? Put bad to ball. I mean, even if they were hitting and outs, at the very least, you can tip your cap and move on. 15 strikeouts tonight. And all the swing and miss that you hear Tom McCarthy and John Cruck talking about. I mean, at one point it sounded like they were going to set the record for swing and miss in a game for a starting pitcher. I mean, this was just an inexcusable loss from an offensive perspective that sucks because the last like four out of five games, they actually hit the ball. I thought we might go a week here without some nonsense in terms of the offense. We didn't. Just back to the same old same old, back to, you know, needing to scrape together and score under four runs and maybe, you know, have a chance to win the game if your starter can allow the opposition to under three, and so on and so forth. Baseball, the type of baseball that is not going to last you through an entire season. And I and I'll be honest with you. We'll talk a little bit about last night, in which they scored five runs, and here's what you need to know. Christopher Sanchez was terrific, won seven innings, he did give up two runs, but hey, I'm not expecting him to be masterfully brilliant every timeout. He can only have one streak a year, typically, where you go 50 innings. That's usually in a lifetime. Uh, but you're not going to get that multiple times throughout a season. And the Phillies offense came through. And it was a lot of the guys that were hitting five through nine that came through. Dolis Garcia, two run blast. Bryson Stott, a couple RBI hits. Alec Boehm, JT Rio Muto. Some good offense. Just doing keeping it simple. Kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. That's the motto for the Phillies. You know what? That should be the big that should be the team motto. They should print it out, put it up on a wall somewhere in the Phillies Clubhouse. Keep it simple, stupid. That should be the Phillies thing. Because tonight they weren't doing that. They were trying to, you know, hit tape deck home runs again, and that doesn't help them. And they had opportunities. Bryce Harper singled in the top of the fourth, only for Marsh to strike out, and Bohm to strike out, and Stott to pop up into foul territory, and Harper just stands on first. If you're gonna get a leadoff single, if you're gonna get a leadoff walk, if you're gonna get a leadoff, you know, free pass for an error, you gotta move him. I don't care. Who cares? Great, he got a single. Good for his numbers, doesn't do much for the team. Come on, guys. They gotta be better than this. And amazingly, Zach Wheeler only gives up in this time span through six innings one run. Solo home run to Sanchez in the bottom of the sixth. Then he bears down and gets Penango and Valenzuela. But then in the top of the seventh, where they get an infield single off Bryson Stott, JT strikes out. Then a wild pitch that moves Stott up to second, and then Adoles Garcia. I don't even think he knew where he was in that at-bat. Again, we're back to Adole. I mean, he was stacking good days. Today was a setback. And today was a setback for the Phillies offense, I'll be honest with you. Today was a major setback for the Phillies offense. The bullpen, though, they did their part. Ryan Kirkring 1-2-3. Gets an out with Vlad, the out you needed in the bottom of the eighth. Alvarado comes in, gets Luke's, gets Clement. Top nine, Harper walks. Still tied at one, so the go-ahead run at first. Marsh strikes out. Boom grounds out. It moves Harper to second, and then Stott delivers to make it two to one. Good on Bryson Stott to be able to get the go-ahead lead there. And then we go to the bottom of the ninth. It starts with Johan Duran allowing a leadoff single to Jesus Sanchez. But then Duran has a problem hearing the pitchcom. His next pitch to Penango. Ball in the dirt. Him and JT are both going, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What was that? As they have more pitchcom issues. Varsho steals second. More problems with the pitchcom. They get another wild pitch. And Straw comes around to score. Varsho moves up to third. As he pinched Rand for uh for Padango, who had the single that put runners at the corners, nobody out. The wild pitch that he spiked 2-2. Then an RBI single, the next pitch later to Valenzuela. Or the next batter later to Valenzuela. I gotta tell you, here's the biggest thing that I want to know tonight. Why could we not just go to back to putting one down fastball, two down splitter, three is your knuckle curve, four is your whatever. Screw the pitch calm. Okay, I c I can't hear that. No, I couldn't hear it again. You know, Diego Daniel is out there. Respectfully, Diego, go back to the dugout, JT. One means this, two that, three that, four that. We're just gonna go with hand for the rest of the game because you can see Duran was getting frustrated, and that took him out of the game. Now the first they were talking about it uh about the defensive positioning with Trey Turner and Stott not playing straight up as that first hitter. Uh Sanchez was, you know, got on in that situation. And when Sanchez, you know, obviously gets on, um, it seemed like that also created because of maybe some defensive alignment issues, it sounded like they were saying that that is why Durant originally got maybe a little worked up, plus just having the leadoff hitter get on too. But come on. I mean, y you need three outs. Now it wasn't a rocking chair save. Wasn't like last night where it's a three-run lead. It's a one-run game. And by the way, I don't know if they pump in sound of that Rogers Center. I didn't think it gets that loud there. I mean, it was loud during the World Series. I figured it didn't get that loud all the time. It is loud at that ballpark. And it's like, my God, it sounds like a soccer stadium in here. It sounds like it's the Premier League championship game. And it's a Tuesday night baseball game. Interleague. So I I just I'll be honest, again, I think what took him out of tonight's game was the pitchcom issues. He seemed so frustrated on the mount, it didn't look like he could figure it out. And I'll tell you, just go back to hand signals. But the pro bigger problem is the Phillies offense. Dylan Cease is not going to be in any Cy Young candidate a plumb this year. Why they couldn't figure that guy out is beyond me. Why they could not just get on base, keep the line moving, and take that approach is beyond me because that's what the Phillies needed to do. And they didn't. And that is, you know, kind of a shame on them because they should have gotten more runs across for Zach Wheeler, who didn't have his best stuff tonight. We know that. I mean, he wasn't unhittable Zack Wheeler. But he was good enough, Zach Wheeler, that he should have been that he should be getting the win tonight. He was good enough that the offense should have sat there and said, you know what, guys? He's pitching his you know what off right now. We gotta go out there and we gotta win this game for him. We can get this guy. If we just keep our approach in a way of just passing the baton and not trying to do too much and playing as a team, we're gonna get him to win. And that did not happen. And that was disgraceful performance from the offense. Like I said, you ground out sharply in a majority of your outs, you hit the ball all the way to the track. You know what? You won four out of the five last games, you're not striking out 15 times, you're not whiffing at pitches, you tip your cap and you move on if that's what happens. But the fact of the matter is, they're at bats tonight, we're putrid. And, you know, we can talk about for a team that's getting paid this much money, you gotta, you know, you gotta get on base, you gotta push runs across. And it can't just be two guys doing it. Can't just be Marsh and Harper. And I mean, hey, Schwarber, you know, we're ten days into June. Hasn't been Schwerber month yet. We're hoping we can get some Schwerber month tomorrow because I'll tell you what, after a loss like tonight, now this is a veteran group, and this is a group I'm sure that understands watching them leave the dugout tonight, they were upset. But I'm sure by now, as we're approaching midnight, they've probably assessed the situation and hopefully moved on and said, hey, tomorrow's a new day, and we gotta go see if we can't get one more tomorrow. But you got Milwaukee approaching, and Milwaukee is as tough as they come. And that's gonna be a difficult team to win a series against. Let's just call it like we see it. So for the Phillies, we'll be facing Max Scherzer tomorrow and Jesus Lozardo, who, you know, hey, the days are long, but the years are short, dude. It's been about a year since you absolutely crapped the bed against the Toronto Blue Jays last year. Why don't you go out there and after the poor performance you had on Friday night against the White Sox, why don't you go out there and pitch like, you know, you give a damn about getting a win? I I shouldn't say he doesn't give a damn, but why don't you go out there and show us why you needed to be paid all that money in the offseason? I shouldn't say he doesn't give a damn. That would be the wrong way to phrase that. But the Blue Jays, who are a team that's two games back from being 500, they are as motivated as ever to go and get a win tomorrow. They're looking at what's going on below them with the Rangers and the A's right there, the Orioles who are losing. Now the Astros are two games out of a wildcard spot, and the Twins are three. Teams that are six and seven games under 500. And then you look at the Phillies, your game up on the Padres for that second wildcard spot. Cardinals are now a game and a half above you. Playing the Mets. You know, if you're the Phillies, you gotta, you know, you gotta kick it in gear here. You gotta get this series because what's coming up next is gonna be tough. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll be back on tomorrow to uh recap the finale of this one. We'll talk to you then.