DETROIT -- As if things could not get any worse for the Phillies following their sixth straight loss on Friday night at Comerica Park, the club announced that ace pitcher Cliff Lee (stiff neck) would not be able to pitch on Saturday night against the Tigers (see story).
So after eking out just three hits against Doug Fister in a 2-1 loss on Friday (see Instant Replay), the Phillies will have to face the American League All-Star starter Max Scherzer and his 14-1 record on Saturday night with an offense that has scored just 10 runs and gone 5 for 37 with runners in scoring position during the six-game losing streak.
Really, could things get much worse for manager Charlie Manuel?
“I hope I make it back to the hotel alright,” Manuel said. “I have two doors in my room. I think I’m going to lock the hell out of both of them.”
But Manuel will have to unlock those doors and come out of his hotel room eventually. At 49-54, the Phillies are down to their final 59 games and stand a healthy nine games behind the Braves in the race for the NL East.
Needless to say, it’s going to be very difficult for the Phillies given the state of their offense. After Fister stymied the Phillies, allowing just one unearned run in eight innings and retiring 13 of the last 14 hitters he faced, Manuel didn’t have much to offer in the way of analysis after the game.
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“You’ve seen it,” Manuel said. “[Fister] wasn’t overpowering us or nothing. He was just pitching. We were just having trouble hitting. He did a good job.”
The Phillies had two on and one out in the third, but No. 2- and No. 3-hole hitters Kevin Frandsen and Jimmy Rollins struck out to end the threat. Darin Ruf singled with two outs in the fourth to give the Phillies their last base runner until Michael Young walked with two outs in the eighth inning.
In the ninth inning, Rollins led off with a single, stole second base with one out and then third with two outs. After that, Ruf grounded out to end the game.
There’s the offense.
“They scored two runs and it’s a shame we couldn’t help [Cole Hamels] out,” Manuel said. “As far as his pitching, he was fine.”
Starting pitcher Hamels was solid in seven innings, allowing just a pair of runs against the American League’s top hitting team. He was able to get out of a jam with two on and one out in the second inning and faced little resistance from the Tigers in each frame except for the fifth.
That’s when Hamels wants to take back one pitch to catcher Alex Avila.
Avila belted a two-run double on an 0-2 pitch with one out in the fifth off a changeup that made Hamels cringe even hours after he threw it. Had he been able to put Avila down, perhaps the Phillies sneak away into the night with an improbable win.
Instead, Hamels is kicking himself after walking Hernan Perez after battling back from a 3-0 count before giving up a first-pitch double to Ramon Santiago. But the 0-2 changeup was too high and Avila made Hamels -- and the Phillies -- pay.
“Just from the part I had to play, obviously, it’s unacceptable to walk guys. Especially in the situation I was in with an 0-2 count to Avila,” Hamels explained. “Understanding where you are, what the situation of the game is, I definitely made a minor-league mistake. That’s the game right there.”
If he could do it all over again, Hamels says he would have stepped off the mound before throwing the 0-2 pitch to Avila.
“It’s probably the worst pitch to throw in that situation to him in the situation of what he was trying to do,” Hamels said. “I froze up and threw it. I didn’t step off and try to take a different approach. I just went out and tried to steamroll through it and that’s the result.”
The six-game losing streak is the Phillies’ longest in the last two seasons and longest since they dropped eight in a row after clinching their fifth straight NL East title in 2011.
With Scherzer ready to pitch against Raul Valdes instead of the All-Star Lee, that seventh straight loss seems all but inevitable.
“It’s going to be tough. We have to go against Scherzer and he’s been pitching very well and he’s not going to make it easy on us,” Hamels said. “So to not have Cliff, it’s going to be tough.”
Then again, things haven’t been going very well with Lee, either. Maybe that’s why Manuel is locking all the doors.