Sedona Red Recap: Return home spells bad news for D-backs against Phillies

Take the Arizona Diamondbacks out of Chase Field and they have the third-most road wins in all of baseball.

Place that same team back in its home ballpark and only the Atlanta Braves have a worse record.

Inexplicable, really.

The D-backs dropped their third in a row at Chase Field, opening a nine-game homestand with an 8-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in front of an announced crowd of 22,567 on Monday.

It was the third straight loss overall for the D-backs, who are 13-26 at home.

Starter Robbie Ray looked good early, cruising through five scoreless innings.

Then the sixth inning hit, and so did the Phillies as they snapped a four-game losing streak to the D-backs.

Ray (4-7) allowed a pair of runs in the sixth and seventh innings before exiting for precautionary reasons due to a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand.

Ray surrendered four runs on nine hits with seven strikeouts in six-plus innings.

The Phillies broke the game open with a six-run seventh: Maikel Franco and Cesar Hernandez each had two-run singles; Cody Asche an RBI double and Odubel Herrera an RBI single.

Franco finished with three RBI.

Herrera went 4-for-5 while Hernandez and Peter Bourjos added three hits apiece, all part of a season-high 16-hit attack.

The Phillies outhit the D-backs 16-7 and have now posted double-digit hit totals in five of the first seven games of their road trip.

The D-backs went hitless from the fourth through the seventh innings.

In his first start since coming off the disabled list because of a strained right biceps, Vince Velasquez (6-2) shut down the D-backs over five innings. The bullpen carried the final four frames to nail down the Phillies’ eighth shutout—best in baseball—and third-ever at Chase Field.

The D-backs have been shutout four times this season.

THE GOOD

Twice in the first three innings, Ray worked himself out of trouble, stranding a total of three baserunners in scoring position. After back-to-back base hits to begin the ballgame, Ray retired the next three batters, including strikeouts of Tommy Joseph and Cameron Rupp. Two innings later, Ray set down the Phillies in order following Velasquez’s leadoff double, once again fanning Joseph on a 96-mph fastball and leaving the Phillies 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.

A single to right, a single to left and Goldschmidt had two hits in his first two plate appearances of the game, raising his batting average to a season-high .307. He has now reached base safely in 10 straight games against the Phillies (.389, 14-for-36, 6 walks) and in 19 of his last 20 games overall (.413, 33-for-80). Entering the game, Goldschmidt ranked second in the majors with a .400 average (42-for-105) since May 27, trailing only the .411 mark of Houston’s Jose Altuve.

THE BAD

A leadoff single may have been the start of something for the D-backs in the third inning. Instead, it went down as another scoreless frame. After lining an 0-2 fastball—clocked at 95-mph—to right field for the D-backs’ fourth hit of the game, Jean Segura got doubled off first base on a Michael Bourn fly ball to deep center field. Odubel Herrera’s throw beat Segura, who retreated back to the bag standing up rather than attempting to slide.

It’s not the type of streak to be proud of, but the Phillies have now committed at least one error in each of their past seven games and 11 of their last 12. It was a foul popup behind home plate that Rupp was unable to handle near the screen, giving Welington Castillo another chance with the bat—he grounded out to the pitcher. By the way, the Phillies have the majors’ worst team fielding percentage since June 16, aided by 17 total errors.

Nine straight batters Ray had retired before Herrera and Bourjos recorded back-to-back singles to open the sixth inning. A wild pitch advanced the two up 90 feet. They then scored on consecutive singles by Franco and Rupp to left and right field, respectively. The four hits in the inning were one more than the Phillies had in the previous five innings combined. It was the third time through the order, an ongoing issue for Ray this season.

Another D-backs baserunning mistake occurred in the sixth inning and once again, it involved the leadoff batter. Bourn drew a walk and with Goldschmidt at the plate took off for second base. Goldschmidt swung and missed, while Bourn was ruled safe. The Phillies challenged, however, and after a 62-second review, the call was overturned as replays showed Bourn had overrun the bag and subsequently tagged out by the second baseman.

Two batters into the seventh inning and Ray’s night was done. Hernandez singled and pinch-hitter Asche doubled him home to make it a 3-0 ballgame. Five more runs would cross home plate, and the final four were charged to Jake Barrett, who threw gasoline on the fire, so to speak, in his two-thirds of an inning that saw three hits and a pair of walks. The Phillies ended up sending 11 batters to the plate in the six-run frame to break the game open, 8-0.

STAT OF THE GAME

6: The number of Phillies runs scored in the seventh inning, exceeding their output from the entire four-game series against the D-backs in Philadelphia, when they were outscored 22-5.

HE SAID IT

“It wasn’t a very good game. It was a very ugly game for us. Once it got out-of-hand, it just kept going,” manager Chip Hale said. “You give them credit, they swung the bats well, but we didn’t play very well, so it’s kind of blah.”

NOTED

– Ray fired a first-pitch strike to 13 of the first 18 batters he faced and 15-of-27 in his six innings.

– Ray struck out five-plus batters for a 15th straight start, the sixth-longest streak in team history.

– Phil Gosselin’s ninth-inning single was his 10th pinch-hit of the season, the most in baseball.

– The D-backs struck out 13 times, their first double-digit strikeout effort over the past five games.

– The D-backs failed to collect an extra-base hit, snapping their streak at 48 consecutive games.

– Between half-innings in the first, the D-backs acknowledged Phillies reliever David Hernandez, a former Diamondback.

– With a first-pitch temperature of 108 degrees, the roof and panels were both closed for the game.

– Wearing their home whites with black gradient “A” cap, the D-backs dropped to 3-6 on the year.

– Prior to the game, the D-backs recognized youth sports leagues with a parade around the field.

UP NEXT

Unbeaten over his last eight starts, Zack Greinke matches up against fellow right-hander Jerad Eickhoff in game two of the three-game series on Tuesday.

First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. MST with pregame coverage beginning 40 minutes earlier on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.

Greinke (10-3) has not lost since May 12, going 7-0 with a 2.18 ERA (14 ER in 57.2 IP). The run includes a victory at Philadelphia on June 18 when he limited the Phillies to one run on three hits with one walk and six strikeouts in eight innings.

Should he beat the Phillies again, Greinke, who did not factor in the decision in his last start, will join Randy Johnson as the only D-backs pitchers with five victories in a single June.

Meanwhile, Eickhoff (5-9) is coming off a win at Minnesota, his third in four mound appearances. The one blemish came against Greinke and the D-backs, a 4-1 Phillies loss with Eickhoff responsible for three of the runs. He scattered nine hits, including a pair of home runs, with one walk and six strikeouts.

That was Eickhoff’s first career appearance facing the D-backs.

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