Phillies fail to capitalize in 8th inning, drop 5th straight

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PITTSBURGH — The Phillies were poised to overtake the Pittsburgh Pirates in the eighth inning Saturday. Pittsburgh took a three-run lead after two innings but the Phillies cut their deficit to two after Ben Revere doubled and scored on Jeff Francoeur’s single to start the eighth.

Chase Utley followed with a single and Ryan Howard walked to load the bases with no outs against left-hander Tony Watson.

But the Phillies didn’t score again, as they fell, 4-3, to the Pirates for their 18th loss in their last 22 games and fifth straight defeat (see Instant Replay).

“It really came down to the eighth inning,” manager Ryne Sandberg said. “We put ourselves in a good situation to not only tie but possibly win.”

Maikel Franco and Cody Asche each grounded into a fielder’s choice that resulted in runners thrown out at the plate. Freddy Galvis grounded out to end the inning and let the Pirates off the hook.

“It’s a situation where young players were up there and it’s something that they’ll experience and grow from,” Sandberg said. “But really the game came down to that.”

Franco, who’s played in only 42 games and is 22 years old, showed his youth when he grounded the first pitch he saw from Watson to third base. Pirates third baseman Josh Harrison fielded it and threw home for the force out.

“I was trying to see a good pitch to hit,” Franco said. “He threw me a changeup down and I hit a groundball.”

Franco was hunting a fastball to put in play from Watson after he saw that Watson walked a batter earlier in the inning on a breaking pitch.

“Once again these are some of the guys that he’s facing for the first time,” Sandberg said. “I think he’ll learn from that going forward but the guy threw him a good changeup on the first pitch and he went fishing for it, maybe thought it was a fastball.”

Franco homered off Reds flamethrowing closer Aroldis Chapman earlier this month and is hitting .425 in June, but Sandberg suspected he was trying to do too much in the situation.

“He’s an aggressive hitter and that’s part of what he does well,” Sandberg said. “It really gives him a chance to hit and drive the ball because of his aggressiveness.”

Moving forward, Sandberg hopes his young third baseman will learn from at-bats of the sort to “think about getting one in not three or four.”

After Franco, Asche took a called strike then tapped back to Watson on the mound. Watson flipped the ball home as Utley tried to score.

Galvis got ahead in the count 3-1, but grounded out to second base and ended the inning with Phillies failing to score after loading the bases with none out.

The massive missed chance followed a night in which the Phillies went 0 for 9 with men in scoring position and stranded 13 men on base in their 13-inning loss. The Phillies wasn’t much better Saturday, going 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position and stranding seven men.

“It’s been a combination of things but sometimes it’s just putting the ball in play to pick up a run,” Sandberg said. “We did that early on in the game to pick up a couple runs, did a nice job there, but could not do it there in the eighth.”

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