Realmuto exits early — and what we learned in Phillies' sloppy loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
SAN FRANCISCO — Finding sustained success at Oracle Park continues to be an issue for the Phillies.
They won the first game of the series Monday, their first win in a series opener in the Bay Area since 2014.
While Cristopher Sánchez taking the ball gave them a good chance to win the series, Philadelphia will now keep waiting for its first series win in San Francisco since May of 2013 after dropping Tuesday night’s contest 6-0 to the Giants.
And the 11th game of the season certainly did not get off to a good start.
In the bottom of the first, the Phillies got some bad news. Giants first baseman Rafael Devers followed a ball back, and it pierced J.T. Realmuto’s foot beyond the foot pad on his leg guard.
It was later announced that the Phillies’ catcher suffered a bruised right foot. The situation felt familiar. During opening week last season, Realmuto left a game with a similar injury after getting hit on March 29.
Rob Thomson, a former catcher himself, was cautious then, and that could very well be the case again after he pulled Realmuto this time. It’s obviously difficult to compare injuries one-for-one, but Realmuto missed only one game last time around. At 35 and on a multi-year deal, being careful with his body makes sense.
Rafael Marchán has been an adequate backup, a switch-hitter and a timely bat when given the opportunity. More to come there.
ROCKY ACE OUTING
While the first inning got off to a rocky start, with Sánchez allowing a run on two hits, the Phillies’ ace continued to work in and out of trouble. The outing was reminiscent of Andrew Painter’s a night ago.
He posted a 74 percent strike rate in the outing and continued to fill up the zone, but the Giants kept putting the ball in play. San Francisco entered the night with the lowest OPS in baseball at .578, but it is not a club that racks up strikeouts, ranking around the middle of the league in team strikeout rate.
The Giants finished with 11 hits. Sánchez has allowed double-digit hits just once in a Phillies uniform before this. The last time came on Aug. 11, 2024, when Arizona collected 12 against him. When the Giants put the ball in play Tuesday, they did it with authority, posting a 44 percent hard-hit rate. That was a big jump from their league-worst 34.2 percent entering the night.
Sánchez’s final line was not one of his best: five and a third innings, four earned runs, six strikeouts and the aforementioned hit total. But that still does not tell the full story.
SLOPPY DEFENSE, BOOST IN RIGHT
And that has a lot to do with the fact that the Phillies have not gotten off to a great defensive start, something that showed up clearly Tuesday.
In the third inning, Willy Adames lined his second double of the night into the left-center gap. Phillies center fielder Justin Crawford did not get a great jump on the ball, one he may have had a chance to catch if he had reached the wall in time.
The rookie is still getting a feel for the different outfields around baseball.
A batter later, though, Adolis García came up firing on a Matt Chapman single and gunned down Adames at the plate. It was a great throw and tag by Marchán, and it kept the score at 1-0 at the time. The ball left García’s hand at 89.2 mph. It was the first tracked throw for him this season, but he ranked in the 92nd percentile in arm strength last year, averaging 91.9 mph.
It is a throw the Phillies are not used to seeing out of right field. Nick Castellanos averaged 81.6 mph on his throws last year. A complete difference.
But the defense continued to wobble.
Otto Kemp, still not a left fielder by trade, badly misread a ball in the bottom of the fifth with two outs. He broke the wrong way, spun around and could not track it down. It is a ball Brandon Marsh, an outfielder by trade, likely catches. That miscue came after Trea Turner couldn’t corral a ground ball at short.
Those plays forced Sánchez to throw more pitches than he should have and added to both his hit total and the overall feel of the outing. It was a pitching performance that should not be judged solely by the box score.
STRUGGLES VS. LHP
It has been an inconsistent start to the season for the Phillies at the plate. There have been bursts of offense, comeback wins and then stretches of total silence, like Tuesday night.
The Phillies faced Giants left-hander Robbie Ray, whose final line was as emphatic as his post-pitch grunts: six and two-thirds innings, four hits, seven strikeouts and no runs allowed. He had the Phillies’ bats twisted up all night. They could not get anything going against the former Cy Young winner.
And Ray’s outing underscored one of the Phillies’ biggest issues to begin the year: hitting left-handed pitching.
The club is slashing .165/.277/.258 against southpaws. That is the worst average in baseball. It should improve with time, but for a team whose two biggest stars hit from the left side, it is worth watching, especially if the right-handed platoon bats are not producing in the matchups they are supposed to help win.
The Phillies will get a right-hander from the Giants in the rubber game of the series. They are set to face the soft-throwing Tyler Mahle, who has posted a 7.00 ERA through his first two starts. Aaron Nola will go for Philadelphia.
