Time Is Running Out on Phillies: ‘We Have to Turn It Around Quickly,’ Says J.T. Realmuto

CINCINNATI - Fifteen pitchers combined to throw 342 pitches in Thursday afternoon's September Special between the Phillies and Cincinnati Reds.

Ultimately, the game was decided when Cincinnati's Phillip Ervin clubbed a cutter from Nick Vincent, the Phillies' ninth pitcher of the day, just over Bryce Harper's leap and into the right-field seats to give the Reds a 4-3 win in 11 innings at Great American Ball Park (see takeaways).

But the course of the game was changed well before that, on just three pitches in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Phillies starter Jason Vargas, cruising to that point, gave up a one-out double to Alex Blandino and a first-pitch, two-run homer to Jose Iglesias. Reliever Jared Hughes then came in and surrendered a first-pitch homer to Eugenio Suarez.

Bing. Bang. Boing.

Just like that a 1-0 Phillies lead turned into a 3-1 deficit.

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The Phillies rallied to tie the game on a homer by catcher J.T. Realmuto in the eighth inning, but they couldn't get that go-ahead run on a day when they went 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position.

"That all happened on a few pitches that inning and they scored three runs and that was the difference in the ballgame," Realmuto said afterward. "It happened pretty quick."

The double by Blandino and the homer by Iglesias both came on 83-mph fastballs that caught too much of the plate. Afterward, Vargas blamed himself for not getting them inside more, which is a must at the velocity.

"He still threw the ball great," said Realmuto, defending his pitcher. "Really, we just need to do more to give him some more support."

A day after getting pinch-hit homers from Jay Bruce and Logan Morrison, manager Gabe Kapler utilized both as late-game pinch-hitters. Kapler even plucked Adam Haseley, who had two hits earlier in the game, and eschewed a double-switch with Hector Neris to get those two power bats to the plate. Bruce struck out in the ninth and Morrison in the 10th.

"The whole game was kind of designed to potentially come down to Jay Bruce and Logan Morrison based on the work that they did last night," Kapler said. "So, we had to score a run to win the game.

"It's a super disappointing loss. We all understand our path to success is going to come through our offense and ability to score runs, have big innings, things like that. We weren't able to do that in an extra-inning game."

Bryce Harper did everything he could to squeeze out a run in the top of the 11th. He walked, stole second and moved daringly to third on a ground ball. Rhys Hoskins could not get him in from second with one out. Scott Kingery could not get him in from third with two outs.

It was that kind of day.

It was that kind of two days.

The Phillies came into Cincinnati and won the first two games of the series then lost the next two to leave town with just a split.

"Certainly disappointing," Kapler said. "We have to find ways to win these games. I think everybody in that room knows it."

"It's definitely frustrating," added Realmuto. "We felt like after the first two games in this series, especially with (Aaron) Nola on the mound yesterday, we felt like we had a great chance to win at least three out of four. We were thinking hopefully sweep them, obviously. It's definitely frustrating we didn't come out to play the last couple of days. We battled, we fought back, we stayed in the games, but we just weren't able to do enough to get it done. So it's definitely frustrating."

The schedule now toughens for the Phillies with the three this weekend against the Mets then seven of the next nine against Atlanta with two against Boston in the middle. Oh, yeah, there's also three in Cleveland and five in Washington looming.

These are not the best pairings for a Phillies team that could be four back in the NL wild-card chase with just 23 games to play by the time they wake up Friday morning.

Time is running out.

"It is and it isn't," Realmuto said. "We still have plenty of time but we have to turn it around quickly. We're three or four games out with three weeks left in the season with some really important games against some really good teams. So we have time to do it, but we have to do it pretty quickly."

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