Notes From The Phillies’ 9-4 Loss To Milwaukee

The Philadelphia Phillies lost their third straight game on Wednesday night, falling to the Brewers 9-4. Their record drops to 3-5.

• Roberto Hernandez turned in a decent effort in his second start of the season, allowing four runs (three earned) over five innings. The veteran gave up seven hits and one walk, and also struck out nine.
• Ben Revere had another multi-hit game, going 2-4.
• Carlos Ruiz hit out of the three-hole again, and went 2-5, scoring two runs.
• Marlon Byrd went 1-4, and drove in two of the team’s runs.
• Domonic Brown went 1-4 with an RBI double.
• Cesar Hernandez got another start for Chase Utley at second, and went 0-4.
• Cody Asche came off of the bench with a pinch-hit double.
• Jeff Manship pitched a scoreless sixth inning.
• Jake Diekman struck out the side in the seventh.
• Antonio Bastardo blew the game for the team tonight, allowing three runs in the eighth inning. He walked another batter, giving him four walks allowed in four appearances. He allowed a two-run triple to Ryan Braun.
• Justin De Fratus allowed two more runs in the ninth inning.

Final Thoughts

The bullpen continues to kill this team.

Its one of the biggest flaws with this group that Ruben Amaro has assembled. When you don’t have a deep starting rotation, and you ask your bullpen to regularly get through three or four innings every night, you’re going to have a lot of problems. When you have a weak rotation, you need to counter that with a deep bullpen or vise versa.

With Roberto Hernandez, Kyle Kendrick, and Jeff Manship in the rotation, the Phillies are going to have a lot of games where they only get five or six innings from their starter. That’s asking an awful lot from a bullpen stocked with young arms and little experience. Jake Diekman is really the only guy that you can feel good about right now.

B.J. Rosenberg and Antonio Bastardo have looked very shaky at best in their appearances. Ryne Sandberg doesn’t seem to have any confidence in Justin De Fratus or Brad Lincoln, having only used them sparingly so far.

This is looking like the third straight year that the bullpen will be a major issue. At what point does the general manager take some serious heat for how he’s utterly failed to make any improvements in that time frame?