SAN DIEGO — The Phillies’ offense is coming up small at a most inopportune time.
The Phils were shut out, 2-0, by the National League’s worst team, the San Diego Padres on Friday night.
That’s two straight shutout losses for the Phillies, who slipped into a first-place tie with Atlanta in the NL East. Atlanta won its game at Milwaukee.
The Phillies, who have not scored a run in 19 innings, are 1-3 on this six-game road trip and they have scored just seven runs in the four games. They were shut out Wednesday in Arizona and had just four hits in that game.
The Phils were beaten by Patrick Corbin, one of the top pitchers in the NL, in the series finale in Arizona. In this game, they took it on the chin against a 22-year-old right-hander who was making his big-league debut. In fact, Jacob Nix had made only one start above the Double A level before this outing.
Nix held the Phils to four hits over six innings. He walked two and struck out four. Not a bad debut.
MLB
The Phillies wasted eight shutout innings from Jake Arrieta in the first game of the road trip. They wasted another good one in this game. Zach Eflin pitched six innings of two-run ball against the team that originally drafted him in 2012. The right-hander struck out eight and issued just one walk, which was intentional.
Austin Hedges singled against Eflin with one out in the second, stole second and scored on a two-out hit by Freddy Galvis. Eflin could not put away Galvis as the former Phillie stroked a full-count fastball (95 mph) up the middle for the first run of the game. Galvis is 8 for 14 with five RBIs against his former club this season.
In the fourth inning, Hedges drove a 1-2 fastball from Eflin over the center-field wall to give the Padres a 2-0 lead.
The Padres had just seven hits in the game and they struck out 11 times.
The Phillies had eight hits, all singles.
The Phillies had chances. They left the bases loaded in the first inning and two men on in the second.
In the seventh, they got the first two men on base against lefty reliever Matt Strahm. He proceeded to strike out pinch-hitter Roman Quinn and Cesar Hernandez before getting slumping Rhys Hoskins on a bouncer back to the mound. Hoskins hit a couple of balls hard early in the game, but is 0 for his last 20 and the Phillies really miss his production.
In the ninth, the Phils got the first two men on base again but Padres right-hander Kirby Yates survived the threat. He struck out Jorge Alfaro and pinch-hitter Andrew Knapp for the first two outs then got Hernandez on a tapper in front of the mound to end the game.
The Phillies finished the game 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position. They are 3 for 29 with runners in scoring position on the trip.