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The Phillies beat the Big Green Spots on the weather radar, but they couldn’t beat the team in the gray and blue uniform on Wednesday night.
And adding the injury to the insult of a second loss in as many nights to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Phils may have lost one of their most needed players to a possible concussion.
Receiver JT Realmuto left the loss 8-2 late in the first inning after removing two foul balls from his face mask early in the inning.
Players who leave games after hits to the head immediately enter the MLB-mandated concussion protocol. It’s unclear when Realmuto will return to the lineup, but losing him for a while will be a blow to the team as they try to hold onto their share – yes, their share – of the top spot in the East. from NL.
“It’s day to day, questionable,” manager Joe Girardi said after the game. “We’ll have to see how he’s doing tomorrow, wait and see. He’s been tested and we’ll wait for the MLB results tomorrow.”
Realmuto’s absence was felt in Wednesday night’s loss. The Phils were only behind by one point in the start of the seventh when the Dodgers scored two points against Kyle Gibson. The right-hander allowed a single, hit a batter and walked another in the inning. But he was also disappointed in his defense as an error by Alec Bohm, playing first base in place of injured Rhys Hoskins, and a loaded ball passed to Andrew Knapp, the Realmuto substitute, allowed two points to rise. to mark.
Ironically, the Phillies had played excellent defense earlier in the game with corner fielders Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper making big plays in a close game.
“Defense is really important,” Girardi said. “I still believe you win this game with pitching and defense and when you give extra strikeouts to a team like the Dodgers you’re asking for a lot of trouble.”
While the Phillies have lost back-to-back games against the Dodgers, the Atlanta Braves have won back-to-back games against the Cincinnati Reds. The Phils’ two-game lead over the Braves is now gone. The two teams are tied for top of the NL East with the New York Mets in a return game.
“This is what you are going through,” Girardi said. “We have to play well.”
Offensively, the Phils have just 13 hits in two games against the Dodgers and 12 of them are singles. They hit 24 times. Bryce Harper, who entered the series on fire, has cooled off. He’s 0 for 6 with four strikeouts and two walks in the first two games of the series, which ends Thursday afternoon.
“We didn’t swing the sticks as well as we had been,” said Girardi, referring to the Phillies’ eight-game winning streak in the series. “We’ve been through this before and we’ve always bounced back. So you’re looking forward to tomorrow and hopefully we’ll throw the sticks and win one of those three games with the Dodgers.”
A day after losing Aaron Nola cruising in the fourth inning to a thunderstorm and an hour and 44 minute delay, the Phils took no chances with bad weather. They held Gibson off his scheduled departure and kept him in a holding pattern until the rains followed. Relievers Connor Brogdon and Hector Neris won the first two innings and held the Dodgers scoreless before the skies opened up and resulted in a 53-minute delay.
Gibson finally took the mound to open the start of the third inning of a scoreless game.
He got help from McCutchen – he took down Will Smith trying to stretch a single into a double – to come out unscathed in the third inning, but was scored for three runs in the fourth inning.
Gibson opened that frame with a four-length walk to Corey Seager, then faced Cody Bellinger for 13 shots before retiring from a two-run homer.
After the Bellinger homer, Gibson gave up a single with one putout to AJ Pollock and a double with two strikeouts to opposing pitcher David Price, falling 3-0 down.
The Phils slashed the Dodgers’ lead in the bottom of the fourth by two points as Ronald Torreyes delivered a two-run two-run single, but Price, who survived the rain delay, allowed Odubel Herrera to s ‘fly to the deep center to complete the round.
The Dodgers went to their bullpen in the fifth and this unit delivered five scoreless innings to go with the 5 ⅔ scoreless innings they provided in Tuesday night’s win.
“We couldn’t do what we did (Tuesday) because it would have compromised our reliever box,” Girardi said of the decision to hold Gibson back as the weather cleared.
He found no comfort in the fact that the strategy worked.
“We didn’t win, that’s the main thing,” he said.
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