The Philadelphia Phillies lost their second straight game on Saturday night, falling to the Nationals 8-1. Their record drops to 5-7.
On The Mound
- A day after Jeremy Hellickson was lit up for five runs in the first inning, the Phils got similar disappointing results from young star Aaron Nola.
- Nola pitched just five innings, and gave up seven runs on seven hits and three walks.
- Nola instantly put the team in a 3-0 hole after just the first inning. Bryce Harper hit a sacrifice fly, followed by an RBI-single and an RBI-triple from Ryan Zimmerman and Daniel Murphy.
- In the fourth inning, Nola allowed Washington pitcher Max Scherzer to double home two more runs.
- Nola was burned again in the fifth inning by Bryce Harper for a two-run homer to end his night.
- Dailer Hinojosa pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Nola.
- Hector Neris worked a scoreless eighth. He has still yet to allow a run on the season.
- James Russell allowed a run to be tacked on in the ninth.
At The Plate
- The offense had another miserable showing, putting up just one run on seven hits.
- Cameron Rupp supplied the lone score with a solo homer.
- Cesar Hernandez led off and went 0-4, dropping his average to .263.
- Odubel Herrera went 1-3 with a double and a walk.
- Maikel Franco went 1-4 with a single.
- Ryan Howard went 0-4 with two strikeouts, dropping his average below .200 to .194.
- Darin Ruf got a start in left field, but went 0-4 with three strikeouts.
- Freddy Galvis hit sixth, and went 2-4 with a couple of singles.
- Cedric Hunter turned in another 0-4.
- Emmanuel Burris recorded a pinch-hit triple.
Final Thoughts
In both games in this series, the Phillies have never had a chance.
They’ve fallen behind instantly both times, and with an offense that has scored more than three runs only one time in 12 games, this isn’t a lineup that is built to stage any kind of dramatic comebacks.
It was somewhat understandable that a guy like Jeremy Hellickson would suffer a letdown in the first game of the series. Hellickson is a guy who doesn’t have killer stuff, and he came out incredibly flat against a great hitting lineup. However, for a guy like Aaron Nola to lay an egg is much more distressing.
This was probably the biggest major league start of Nola’s career to date, and he fell flat on his face. While its important to keep things in perspective and never make too much out of one game, the fact of the matter is that the team needed him to come out and give them a quality start in a big game against the first-place team in the division, and instead he put them behind right away, and buried them with some bad mistakes in the later innings.
