Not in a good place: Giants 10, Phillies 4

The Phillies returned home, but their poor play continued

About a week ago, things were going well for the Phillies. They were coming off a clutch win over the Dodgers and had still yet to lose a series in 2025. But things can change quickly, and as I write this, things aren’t going very well for the Phillies. After a losing road trip in which they generally played poorly, they returned home on Monday and continued to play poorly, dropping a 10-4 decision to the San Francisco Giants.

Early on, it looked like it might be the Phillies’ night. After the Giants went down in order in the first, the Phillies put three runs on the board thanks to RBI hits by Trea Turner and Nick Castellanos, as well as an RBI groundout by Max Kepler.

Taijuan Walker was the starting pitcher. He was representative of the team’s hot start, not allowing a run in either of his first two appearances. And now that start number three is in the books, he’s still held the opponent scoreless in 15 of his 16 innings pitched. But that 16th inning came in the second inning tonight, and it was a doozy. Walker gave up six runs in the second inning, putting the Phillies in an early hole they couldn’t recover from.

It’s not like they didn’t have opportunities. In the fourth inning, the Phillies had runners on second and third with nobody out, and they failed to score. A Nick Castellanos solo home run in the fifth got them to within two runs, but they wasted a leadoff double by Max Kepler in the sixth. Both innings featured strikeouts by Johan Rojas who seems to have no concept of the strike zone at the moment.

When a team starts going bad, the breaks don’t go their way. Trailing by four runs in the seventh, the Phillies had two runners on with J.T. Realmuto at the plate. Realmuto sent a 1-1 fastball JUST outside the foul pole in left field. He managed to battle back to a full count, only to have his at bat ended when the umpire decided a ball well off the plate was strike three.

The Phillies’ bullpen didn’t help matters, with Tanner Banks and Jose Ruiz giving up two runs each. Honestly, I’d rather have the bullpen turn in bad outings in a game they weren’t winning anyway.

The past few games have been ugly, but as I mentioned, things can change quickly. These teams will be back at it on Tuesday, and the Phillies can start to turn this current bad stretch back into a good one. And I hope they do, because the past week hasn’t been all that fun to watch.