Two days in Citizens Bank Park have snapped the Milwaukee Brewers out of their funk.
The National League's best team rallied to beat the Phillies for a second straight day Saturday. The Brewers got a pinch-hit grand slam from Ji-Man Choi with two outs in the top of the sixth inning to overcome a one-run deficit on their way to a 12-3 win over the free-falling Phillies. The Brewers (39-25) entered the series with four losses in their previous five games.
The Phillies, meanwhile, have lost four in a row and 10 of the 13 games they have played since spending a day in first place in the NL East after a win over Toronto on May 26. The Phillies were a season-best nine games over .500 that day. They enter Sunday's series finale against Milwaukee just two games over .500 at 32-30 and four games back in the standings.
Six days after calling out the team, top to bottom, for lackluster play in a loss at San Francisco, Jake Arrieta failed to get out of the sixth inning. He gave up a two-run homer in the first inning but got a lead thanks to Rhys Hoskins' three-run homer in the third.
Arrieta took that lead to the mound in the sixth but loaded the bases with one out on an error (catcher's interference) by batterymate Jorge Alfaro, a walk and a hit batsman. Gabe Kapler, who had conferred with Arrieta after the pitcher walked Jonathan Villar on his 104th pitch of the day, went to reliever Luis Garcia with the bases loaded. Garcia got a strikeout for the second out of the frame. He then got ahead of Choi with two strikes before Choi clawed back and stroked a full-count fastball just inside the left-field foul pole to give the Brewers a three-run lead that they built to seven runs an inning later.
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After scoring 12 runs in their previous five games entering the series, the Brewers have scored 24 runs in two games against the Phils.
The Phillies had just six hits in the game. They have averaged just three runs per game while going 3-10 in their last 13.
Poor defense again
Poor defense continues to hurt the Phillies. Alfaro's catcher's interference on Ryan Braun ignited the Brewers' decisive sixth-inning rally. Alfaro and fellow catcher Andrew Knapp both have six errors, tying them for tops in the majors. The duo has racked up four interference calls, most by Phillies catching since 1972.
Franco sits again
Maikel Franco did not start for the third game in a row, even though the Brewers had a lefty, Brent Suter, on the mound. J.P. Crawford was again at third base and played well defensively. Kapler said Franco was under the weather Friday and still recovering on Saturday.
On Friday, general manager Matt Klentak insisted that the team had not lost faith or patience in Franco. He insisted that Franco was not being phased out. Franco hit the ball well in a pinch-hitting appearance in the ninth inning on a fly out to deep center. It will be interesting to see if he starts Sunday against right-hander Brandon Woodruff or whether Crawford gets his fourth start in a row at third base.
