Notes From The Phillies’ 5-3 Loss To Washington

The Philadelphia Phillies lost their second straight game on Friday night, falling to the Nationals 5-3. Their record drops to 13-14.

• Cliff Lee tossed seven innings, and allowed two runs (only one earned) on four hits and two walks. Lee struck out five, and allowed a solo home run in the third inning.
• The Phillies scored all three of their runs in the first inning off of a three-run shot from Marlon Byrd, his fourth homer of the year.
• Byrd was bailed out when Jayson Werth dropped a foul ball that would have ended the inning.
• Mike Adams was called upon to pitch the eighth inning, but allowed three runs and failed to record an out. Adams began the inning by giving up a double to Denard Span, and then gave up a couple of base hits before being lifted for Jake Diekman.
• Diekman allowed two hits and a walk, causing two inherited runs to score.
• Chase Utley went 2-4 with a couple of singles.
• Jimmy Rollins went 0-2 with two walks.
• Cody Asche went 2-4 and hit his fourth double of the year.
• Domonic Brown went 0-4 with three strikeouts.

Final Thoughts

The Phillies have come back to earth since returning from their west coast trip.

The offense has gone ice cold, and if not for Jayson Werth’s error in the first inning would have been shutout last night.

The bullpen has really been struggling to protect leads, especially in the eighth inning. The team has a 6.33 ERA in the eighth inning this year, the worst in all of baseball. Mike Adams has only pitched in a handful of games since being activated from the disabled list, and I think its too early to say that he’s a shot fighter, but there’s no doubt that last night’s effort was pretty alarming.

A guy with Adams’ resume has got to be able to come through for the team in a tight situation in an important game like this against a division foe. For him to fail so miserably and not be able to record a single raises a lot of concern.