Tag: Expired

The Phillies are moving up their start time for Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays from 3:05 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. due to inclement weather, the team announced.

The nor’easter howling through the East Coast has left the Philadelphia region with heavy rainfall, which is expected to continue throughout Sunday afternoon and evening.

The Phillies said the earlier start time should provide the best opportunity to play Sunday’s regular-season finale without interruption.

And the stakes couldn’t be higher.

After the Phillies fell 12-1 to the Rays on Saturday, it marked their fourth consecutive loss and one more opportunity to decide their playoff fate.

If the Phillies win Sunday, they will clinch the third and final NL wild-card spot. If they lose and the Diamondbacks win, Arizona will get in.

The Diamondbacks play the Padres at 3:10 p.m. ET in San Diego

Above each locker in the Phillies’ home clubhouse is a rolled-up sheet of plastic. They have waited there, lining the room, for the past four days, ready to be unfurled the moment the Phillies secured a playoff spot. But by Saturday evening, the Phillies’ fourth consecutive loss, the plastic and what it represents had become taunting.

Even the old photo of Kyle Schwarber in his high school football uniform that had been taped above the door, presiding over the room for the last month, had been taken down. There is nothing to laugh about anymore.

With the Phillies’ latest 12-1 loss to the Rays, their drawn-out collapse has become a five-alarm fire of humiliation. Every one of interim manager Don Mattingly’s gambles failed on Saturday, a dreary, rainy night befitting perhaps one of the last gasps of the Phillies season.

If the Phillies find themselves playing beyond Sunday, they have Manny Machado and the Padres to thank. While the Rays’ lead grew to double digits, on the other side of the country, Machado hit a go-ahead two-run homer to help beat the Diamondbacks, 10-7. In doing so, he and the Padres shrank the Phillies’ magic number to one.

With a win in Game 162, or another Arizona loss on Sunday, they can still salvage this week from franchise infamy.

“We got to come out and play our best baseball tomorrow,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto. “That’s really all there is to it.”

The desperation move to start Aaron Nola on two days’ rest did not work. Junior Caminero jumped on him with a two-run homer, and back-to-back doubles from Victor Mesa Jr. and Richie Palacios gave the Rays a 3-0 lead before the Phillies’ offense even stepped into the box.

All three runs came with two outs. The Phillies had hoped he could give them 40 to 50 pitches; Nola only lasted 21.

“I was actually really proud of him,” Mattingly said. “Taking the ball there on two days’ rest. Just gutting it out. And yeah, it didn’t go as well as we liked.”

A start like that marked a first for Nola in his 11-season career. He said it was an easy yes when the Phillies approached him with the idea, and he skipped his usual bullpen session Friday to stay ready for it.

“Obviously, it wasn’t ideal to start the game off, and get the guys down 3-0 in the first. Tough loss,” Nola said.

The gamble to mix up the lineup didn’t work, either. In a playofflike atmosphere, both in stakes and in temperature, the Phillies folded. They mustered seven total hits. The $780 million top of the Phillies order — Trea Turner now moved to leadoff, Schwarber, and Bryce Harper — accounted for three of them.

Realmuto went hitless again before being replaced by Garrett Stubbs with the game already out of reach in the seventh. His slump has reached 0-for-34.

“I feel like I’m letting a lot of guys down in this clubhouse,” Realmuto said. “So I’ve been working my tail off to try to fix it.”

One play in the third encapsulated how things have been going for the offense: With Justin Crawford on second base, Turner hit a 104 mph laser up the middle, but it bounced off the back of Rays pitcher Griffin Jax and directly to shortstop Taylor Walls. He was able to finish the play and the inning.

Jax had to be helped off the field and the Rays called on their bullpen for the fourth, which continued to stifle the Phillies’ bats.

“Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t guess that we’d be in this situation, but that’s this game. It knows how to humble you,” Realmuto said.

Mattingly’s gamble to intentionally walk Caminero in the fifth inning proved to be one of the most disastrous. With José Alvarado on the mound, two runners on, the game still within a three-run margin, the Phillies took the bat out of Caminero’s hands. Alvarado has been better against righties this season — they have a .235 average against him, compared to lefties’ .333 — though Caminero is a power threat no matter the handedness of the pitcher.

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But Alvarado did not throw another strike after that. He gave up a single to Mesa Jr. on a sinker below the zone, and then walked Palacios on four pitches to force in a run. When José Urquidy took over, the bases still loaded, another single scored two more. And before the final out of the fifth, the Phillies had already essentially waved the white flag.

By the time the Phillies finally scratched across a run on an error from Palacios in the seventh, their scoreless streak had reached 21 innings. It surpassed the previous season-high drought of 20 set in April. Back then, the Phillies preached patience. This time, there is nothing to be patient for. There is no time left.

Searching for optimism anywhere they can find it, the Phillies pointed to their at-bats late in the game. Four of their seven hits came in the final three innings, even if they only got one run out of it.

“You probably think I’m crazy. … And I’m not going to say our at-bats overall, but in a game like that, our guys fought the whole way,” Mattingly said. “A lot of fight, at-bats at the end. I was actually encouraged at the end of that game. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic. But I was encouraged.”

The Phillies have one final chance in Game 162 on Sunday, when Zack Wheeler will start. Jesús Luzardo is expected to be activated from the injured list and be available in the bullpen. Jonathan Bowlan could be in play, too.

“We’re always confident when that guy’s on the mound,” Realmuto said of Wheeler. “To me, it just comes down to our offense tomorrow. We need to be able to score, and we need to have good at-bats. And obviously, they have a good pitching staff, so we’re going to have to work that out for us.”

Mattingly is making one more gamble. If this one works, they will be without at least one of their aces for the wild-card series. If it doesn’t, their season is most likely over anyway.

As the Phillies plunged into a teamwide slump over the last few weeks, Don Mattingly preached consistency over change in the batting order.

But something finally changed Saturday.

With two games to go and the Phillies needing to win at least once to clinch the final National League wild card, Mattingly flipped Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner atop the order, with Turner leading off for the first time since Aug. 3.

“Honestly,” Mattingly said, “we really didn’t change a whole lot. Just a little different feel as much as anything else. It’s not a huge change.”

Mattingly also put Bryce Harper back at first base and Alec Bohm at third, a return to the infield alignment before the deadline trade for Luis Arraez, who missed his second game in a row with a sprained left ankle.

The Phillies haven’t disclosed the severity of Arraez’s injury, though Mattingly described it as “a pretty good ankle sprain.” The team hasn’t put a timetable on his return either, though it doesn’t appear imminent. If he’s placed on the injured list, he will miss at least the wild-card miniseries.

“It doesn’t feel great,” Mattingly said. “We don’t know what he’s going to be able to do. We’ll see how far we can go with it. Obviously, we’re hoping he can do something, but it doesn’t feel that great.”

In Arraez’s absence, Mattingly said Harper could move between first base and right field. When Edmundo Sosa starts, he’s best suited for third base, which would put Harper in the outfield; when Bryan De La Cruz starts, it would be in right field, with Harper at first base.

Turner’s return to the leadoff spot comes amid a 12-game stretch in which he batted only .244 with a .358 on-base percentage. But Schwarber was in a 6-for-48 (.125), 15-strikeout rut over his last 14 games.

As a team, the Phillies were batting .241 with a .292 on-base percentage, .632 OPS, and 74 runs in their last 21 games en route to going 8-13. In the previous 21 games, a 17-4 stretch, they batted .273 with a .352 on-base percentage, .756 OPS, and 110 runs.

Sunday’s for Luzardo

Jesús Luzardo was scheduled to test his strained left shoulder by facing hitters.

It didn’t happen.

Given the possibility that the Phillies will need to win Sunday, the first day Luzardo is eligible to return from the injured list, the star lefty didn’t throw live batting practice so he could be available to come out of the bullpen against the Rays in the season finale.

“Everything’s in play at this point,” Mattingly said.

Luzardo hasn’t pitched since his 109-pitch shutout of the Braves on Sept. 7. He was shut down from throwing Sept. 11 and didn’t resume until Sept. 20. He threw roughly 30 pitches off a bullpen mound Thursday.

Mattingly doesn’t believe Luzardo is being rushed back.

“I only feel comfortable because everyone else feels comfortable, through medical, through him, through the pitching guys, watching his bullpen, all that stuff,” Mattingly said. “I would not want to be the guy making that decision just by what I see or what I want. It’s more about what everybody else is saying and what they think he’s capable of.”

Extra bases

Setup reliever Jonathan Bowlan (groin) is “doing good” after throwing a bullpen session Friday. Mattingly said he could be available to pitch Sunday. Bowlan hasn’t pitched since Sept. 17. … The Phillies are scheduled to face Rays righty Nick Martinez (15-5, 2.94 ERA) in the regular-season finale at 3:05 p.m. Sunday.

The day after Luis Arraez limped off the field, unable to put weight on his left leg, the report from the Phillies’ training room was summed up with four words.

“Not a great one,” interim manager Don Mattingly said.

An MRI on Friday confirmed the results of an X-ray the night before: Arraez has a sprained left ankle. Mattingly said he didn’t have specifics, including a classification (high or low) or degree of the sprain, but noted that Arraez was “stiff and sore.”

“We’ll see if, over the course of the day, it gets better,” Mattingly said. “See if he’s going to be able to do anything.”

Arraez was unavailable before Friday night’s series opener against the Rays.

If Arraez got hurt at any other point in the season, the Phillies likely would put him on the 10-day injured list. Doing so now would cause him to miss the three-game wild-card series and leave him ineligible until at least Oct. 5 — or Game 3 of the divisional round.

For now, then, the Phillies will hold off on a roster move. Mattingly said he would be “a little surprised” if Arraez is able to play over the weekend.

“You don’t feel great about it because he was so sore this morning,” he said. “It depends where it goes, but you could also see, in a couple days, if you feel a lot better, you could wrap it and see what happens.

“If it’s something that we know he’s not going to be able to play, then we’re going to have to [make a move]. You don’t want to play short. We’ll just see where it goes. We’ve got to give it a day.”

In Arraez’s absence, Bryson Stott returned to second base and utilityman Edmundo Sosa started at third against the Rays. Mattingly chose to keep Alec Bohm at first base and Bryce Harper in right field.

Arraez was the Phillies’ headline addition at the Aug. 3 trade deadline, coming over from the Giants for two minor leaguers, including 21-year-old pitching prospect Ramon Marquez. The Phillies shuffled three-quarters of their infield to accommodate Arraez at second base.

In 46 games, all in the cleanup spot, Arraez is batting .278 with a .678 OPS for the Phillies. Overall, the three-time batting champion leads the National League with a .310 average, narrowly ahead of Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno (.308).

“Obviously Luis is a guy who can really, really hit, so it’s a blow to your offense,” Mattingly said. “He’s a guy that’s come in and got his hits. He’s been a kind of stabilizer, kind of mixes our lineup up a little bit. He’s a different kind of guy, so I think any time you lose a guy that’s hitting .300, getting on base, that type of thing, it hurts you.”

Said shortstop Trea Turner: “He’s kind of locked down that four hole for us and just kept the line moving. Whether people are on or he’s leading off, it feels like he’s making us a lot better. And the defense has been really good, too. So, I think that’s going to be a little bit of a blow.”

Luzardo on track

In more encouraging Phillies injury news, Jesús Luzardo didn’t report any problems with his left shoulder after throwing a bullpen session Thursday. He played catch in the outfield.

The Phillies are aiming for Luzardo to face hitters over the weekend, likely in a simulated game setting, to get him ready for the postseason.

One potential snag: It’s supposed to rain all weekend.

Mattingly said the Phillies have discussed contingencies, including finding an indoor space for Luzardo to face hitters. Luzardo hasn’t pitched in a game since a 109-pitch shutout of the Braves on Sept. 7.

“I don’t know if it’s a must,” Mattingly said, “but it would still be nice.”

Meanwhile, rain could play havoc with the Phillies’ final two regular-season games against the Rays, especially given the stakes. Entering play Friday, the Phillies needed any combination of two wins or Diamondbacks losses to clinch a playoff spot. Seeding was also up for grabs.

But while MLB preemptively scheduled doubleheaders Friday in Boston (Cubs-Red Sox) and New York (Orioles-Yankees), no such plans were made in Philadelphia.

“I guess it’s just coming further north,” Mattingly said. “But yeah, I heard there’s some [rain] coming.”

Extra bases

Depending on the stakes, veteran lefty Nestor Cortes “could be” called up to eat innings over the weekend, Mattingly said. The Phillies took a flier on Cortes in August. The 31-year-old posted a 4.76 ERA over 5⅔ innings in triple A. He’s among a group of players who are participating in the Phillies’ “stay ready” camp in Allentown. … The Phillies haven’t named a starter for Saturday night, though recently acquired righty José Urquidy (2-2, 4.54 ERA) is expected to pitch multiple innings as part of a bullpen game. Right-hander Griffin Jax (8-10, 3.62) is scheduled to start for the Rays.