From a missed ball to a missed call, McCutchen in the middle of it all

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​For the second time in four games, Phillies manager Joe Girardi sounded off on the umpiring.

On Wednesday night, he blasted the umpires for their handling of the situation after Bryce Harper and Didi Gregorius were hit by consecutive pitches in a game at St. Louis.

And Saturday night, Girardi went off on a call that went against his team in the seventh inning of a tie game that eventually became a 5-4 loss to the New York Mets.

"It's a terrible call," Girardi fumed. "It might have cost us a game."

The Phillies trailed 4-0 after the first inning but fought back to tie the game on a two-run homer by Alec Bohm in the bottom of the sixth inning.

The next inning, Andrew McCutchen, who had an eventful game, came back from being down in the count, 1-2, and drew a one-out walk against Mets reliever Aaron Loup.

The next batter, Matt Joyce hit a groundball to shortstop Francisco Lindor, who was shifted to the right-field side of second base. Lindor fielded the ball and unsuccessfully tried to tag McCutchen before throwing to first base.

Joyce was initially ruled safe, but the call was overturned in a replay.

It turned out to be an inning-ending double play when second base umpire Jose Navas ruled McCutchen out of the baseline even though he clearly was not.

End of potential rally.

Girardi was furious about the call on McCutchen.

So was Bryce Harper, who was ejected for, ahem, voicing his displeasure from the dugout.

"That was about as straight a line as you can run," Girardi said. "The sad thing is it was not reviewable because it's a judgment."

Though not officially reviewable, the call was reviewed by every person in the ballpark when it was shown on Phanavision. 

McCutchen never left his line.

Egregious blown call.

"It's on the screen clear as day," Girardi said. "The idea is to get the calls right, right? You see it on the screen like that, just reverse it. 

"There's so much at stake in every game. I know people say it's April. Well, we were one game away from making the playoffs last year.

"It's just really unfortunate. I don't know what he could possibly have seen."

Neither did starting pitcher Zack Wheeler.

"Pretty bad," he said. "You could see it from the dugout, see it when they showed the replay on the big board. (McCutchen ran) straight as an arrow. The guy is right there. I don't know what he's looking at. It kind of shifted the momentum."

Wheeler was asked if he'd like to see baseline calls added to the list of reviewable calls.

"It's tough," he said. "Stuff that's recognizable on the big board should be able to be overturned, or at least looked at. I mean, everybody saw it when they showed it up there. That was pretty bad. I think you should be able to review something that's pretty clear like that."

McCutchen was in the crosshairs of the action all night and like Navas, the second base umpire, he didn't see everything clearly.

McCutchen missed a catchable line drive in left field that led to two runs in the first inning.

It was a very damaging play, the latest bit of poor defense that has cost the Phillies over the first month of the season.

"Man, honestly I lost the ball when I was coming in," McCutchen said. "I have had two balls here that I lost on line drives and a ball on the road that I lost on a line drive. I'm not certain what it is, if it's that time of the day where I can't decipher the ball from the backdrop. These day games, the sun, the shadows. I'm just losing it. I'm getting jumps on the ball and I'm reading it. I'm just losing it as I'm trying to catch the ball.

"That ball needs to be caught. Whatever work I have to do to catch those balls, I'll do it. First thing tomorrow, I'll be working on line drives and angles. Those balls have to be caught. I know I can catch them."

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