SEATTLE — The second-best option in the bullpen hadn’t pitched in six days. Nothing to see there, the Phillies insisted. The game situations simply didn’t call for Jonathan Bowlan.
“But tonight,” interim manager Don Mattingly said before Tuesday’s game, “is probably almost a must-pitch.”
So, here were the Phillies, trailing by one run against the Mariners as the seventh inning began. And there was Bowlan, still sitting in the bullpen as Orion Kerkering came on in relief of starter Aaron Nola.
Bowlan pitched, true to Mattingly’s word. But by the time he entered in the eighth, the deficit had swelled to three runs in a 4-1 loss, the Phillies’ second setback in a row here in Seattle after nine consecutive victories.
The record will reflect that Nola yielded the go-ahead run in the sixth inning on back-to-back singles to Julio Rodríguez and Josh Naylor. But Nola allowed only three hits overall to continue a resurgence in the midst of ace Zack Wheeler’s worst six-start stretch in nearly 10 years.
So, let’s not pin this one on Nola. Not after the Phillies went 15 consecutive at-bats without a hit between the third and eighth innings against Mariners starter George Kirby.
And certainly not after Mattingly put a 2-1 seventh-inning deficit in the hands of someone other than his well-rested setup man.
Why Kerkering over Bowlan in the seventh?
“He’s kind of been our seventh-inning guy, eighth depending on where it goes,” Mattingly said of Kerkering. “It felt like he was the right guy.”
To be fair, Kerkering seemed to have gotten a second wind lately after struggling to throw strikes in late July. But he hit Taylor Ward with one out in the seventh, then allowed a single to J.P. Crawford and walked Brock Rodden to load the bases before Randy Arozarena fouled out.
With two out, Mattingly played the matchups, turning to lefty Brooks Raley to face lefty-hitting Dominic Canzone. Raley’s 1-1 pitch was a low-and-away sweeper. But Canzone covered the outer edge of the plate and lined it to center field for a two-run single.
Bowlan, meanwhile, pitched around a one-out walk in a scoreless eighth with an assist to Bryce Harper, who made a diving catch in right field to end the inning.
Kirby muted an offense that had been fully operational throughout the nine-game winning streak. With a blazing fastball and a four-pitch offspeed mixture, he gave up a run on Justin Crawford’s RBI single in the second inning, then slammed the door.
“He’s good, man,” Trea Turner said. “He’s got four or five really good pitches and then just the command is really good. He doesn’t give you much to hit in the middle of the zone. The fastball was hard today. I think I saw a bunch of 99s up there, so he’s tough.
“I felt like we did a good job early battling to get some runners on there, but it’s hard to put a big inning against him as a team.”
Before the game, most of the attention of the Phillies’ pitching brain trust was focused on trying to solve the riddle of Wheeler’s 8.51 ERA in his last six starts. It’s his worst six-start stretch since he posted a 9.89 ERA midway through the 2017 season when he was still with the Mets.
Absent a solution, not much else matters.
But imagine the state of the Phillies’ rotation in these waning days of summer if not for Nola.
And imagine saying that even a month ago.
“He’s been on a good roll,” Mattingly said. “He was really good tonight.”
Nola gave up a game-tying solo homer to suddenly scorching Cal Raleigh in the second inning. He retired 13 of the next 15 batters, allowing only two walks before the back-to-back hits by Rodríguez and Naylor in the sixth.
It marked another quality start for Nola, who has a 3.57 ERA in his last 10 starts. Since July 5, he has lowered his season ERA from 6.04 to 5.03.
“I just kept trying to work, keep working, having good weeks, and keep competing out there,” Nola said. “I feel a little more on the attack, and my misses are a little bit smaller.”
But after flying across the country on the wings of an improbable ninth-inning comeback at home Sunday, back-to-back losses in the Pacific Northwest have felt like a bucket of ice water.
It has also stretched the deficit in the NL East back to 4½ games and narrowed the Phillies’ wild-card lead to three games over the Diamondbacks.
“It’s tough,” Turner said. “But I think we ran into two really good starting pitchers the last couple of days and just didn’t get the job done. I don’t feel like we’re beating ourselves or doing some stupid stuff. I just feel like we just got beaten. You move on.”
