CINCINNATI -- One Phillies debut went pretty well Thursday afternoon.
Another did not.
Daniel Nava clubbed a pair of homers to help build an early three-run lead, but Clay Buchholz could not protect that lead and the Phillies ended up with a 7-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds in the season-opening series finale Thursday afternoon.
Nava and Buchholz, former teammates with the Boston Red Sox, were both in their first game for the Phillies.
Buchholz left the game after five innings with the score tied, 4-4.
The Reds pulled away with a pair of home runs against reliever Adam Morgan.
MLB
After winning on opening day, the Phillies lost two in a row to the Reds. Jerad Eickhoff delivered a quality start in one of them but got no run support. The Phils could not hold a three-run lead in the other.
Starting pitching report
Buchholz pitched five innings and allowed nine base runners -- seven hits and two walks. He gave up four runs. Three of those runs came in the fourth inning when the Reds' first four batters reached base on three singles and a walk.
Cincinnati right-hander Rookie Davis gave up five hits, including both of Nava's homers, and four runs over three innings in his major-league debut, but his mates got him off the hook.
Bullpen report
Morgan took the loss. He gave up a tie-breaking, solo homer to Michael Lorenzen with two outs in the sixth and a two-run homer to Adam Duvall in the seventh.
Cincinnati's bullpen worked six scoreless innings.
At the plate
Nava hit the second pitch he saw in the first inning for a solo homer. He then clubbed a two-run shot in the third to put the Phillies up 3-1. They build the lead to 4-1 in that inning after Odubel Herrera doubled and eventually scored on a wild pitch.
The Phils did not score a run after the third inning. They got the first two men on base in the fifth and sixth innings, all via walks, and did nothing with the threats. Both ultimately ended on double-play balls. One was short-circuited by a base-running mistake by Andrew Knapp, who made his first big-league start.
Phillies hitters struck out 12 times. They struck out 13 times on Wednesday.
Lorenzen had a huge hand in the Reds' two wins in the series. The relief pitcher got three big outs with men on base in the eighth inning of the Reds' 2-0 win on Wednesday night. In this game, he was used as a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning. He smoked a 3-1 pitch over the center-field wall against Morgan to give the Reds the lead. Lorenzen has a history as a hitter. He was an outfielder/pitcher at Cal State Fullerton.
Zack Cozart drove in the Reds' first two runs.
Lineup stuff
Knapp (catcher) and Brock Stassi (first base) made their first big-league starts.
Up next
The Phillies play their home opener Friday afternoon against the Washington Nationals. Vince Velasquez will oppose Max Scherzer in a battle of hard-throwing right-handers.
Scherzer won the NL Cy Young award last season. He is 7-1 with a 2.14 ERA in 11 career starts against the Phillies and 4-0 with a 1.95 ERA in five starts at Citizens Bank Park.