MIAMI – This one hurt. No doubt about it. It hurt.
The Phillies blew a five-run lead in the fifth inning Sunday afternoon and ended up with a 10-5 loss against the Miami Marlins.
The defeat meant the Phillies lost the three game-series to the lowly Marlins. The Phils won Friday night’s game then lost two in a row.
The loss meant they finished an 11-game roadtrip with a 6-5 record, not bad, but certainly not as good as it could have been considering none of the four teams that the Phils played on the trip has a winning record.
The loss meant that the Phillies will head into the four-day All-Star break on a down note, though they are still ahead of where they were expected to be when the season started. The Phils are 53-42 and lead the NL East, though their advantage could be down to a half-game depending on the outcome of Atlanta's game Sunday afternoon.
After being shut out on Saturday, the Phillies erupted for five runs in the fourth inning Sunday. The Phils sent nine men to the plate in the inning against Marlins starter Jose Urena. Maikel Franco and Scott Kingery contributed RBI singles and Cesar Hernandez delivered a huge three-run triple with two outs in the frame.
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Manager Gabe Kapler was ready to pinch-hit for rookie starter Enyel De Los Santos to keep the rally alive, but once the Phils scored two runs Kapler let De Los Santos hit. Though De Los Santos struck out, the rally stayed alive.
De Los Santos, making his second big-league start as the Phillies placed Zach Eflin on the disabled list with a blister on his pitching hand, cruised through the bottom of the fourth, but hit turbulence in the bottom of the fifth inning.
He allowed five straight Marlins to reach base with one out on two singles, two homers and a hit batsman. Cameron Maybin hit a solo homer and Brian Anderson a three-run homer.
Edubray Ramos relieved De Los Santos and appeared to get the third out of the inning with the Phillies still up a run, but his full-count pitch to Martin Prado was ruled a ball, keeping the rally alive, and the Marlins scored four more times in the inning on RBI singles by Miguel Rojas and Justin Bour against Ramos and Adam Morgan, respectively.
Earlier in the inning, first baseman Carlos Santana recorded a putout for the second out. Santana started to run to the dugout as if he thought it was the third out. It was not clear whether Santana would have had a shot at a double play had he been thinking that way, but the play did stand out for the wrong reasons.
Defense hurt the Phillies later in the game when catcher Andrew Knapp’s second passed ball of the game resulted in a Miami run.
Despite scoring five runs, the Phillies’ offense was not good. All the runs came in one inning as did all of the team’s four hits. Otherwise, nothing. That’s a concern. The Phillies averaged just 2.9 runs per game in the final 10 games of the trip.