D-backs suffer ‘brutal all the way around’ loss to Phillies

PHOENIX — Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy homered for the second straight night and catcher Carson Kelly tossed 1.1 scoreless innings of relief on Wednesday.

There weren’t many more positives than that for Arizona (61-68) as hitting, pitching and defense were a struggle in a 18-2 shellacking against the Philadelphia Phillies at Chase Field.

The D-backs’ winning streak ended at five with the most lopsided loss of the season, and the Phillies avoided a three-game sweep while battling for a playoff spot.

“This was a terrible day, brutal all the way around,” manager Torey Lovullo said postgame.

“We don’t need to go over it. You guys saw it. It wasn’t pretty. We’ve got to turn the page and be ready to go tomorrow … Got to keep playing baseball the way we have been in the previous days.”

Starting pitcher Tommy Henry couldn’t consistently find the zone in his sixth career outing.

The southpaw walked four batters in four-plus frames, two to lead off innings whom both scored.

Henry felt that he did not have his best stuff and could not command the fastball, which was evident early as he fell behind the first three batters of the game.

The Phillies (73-58) took advantage, scoring five runs in the first four innings. Henry exited with no outs and two runners on in the fifth.

“Fell behind a lot of hitters, fastball command was not there, too many walks, wasn’t getting the leadoff guy out, just things that you can control to control the momentum of the game and didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” Henry said.

Lovullo said he tried to get Henry through five to limit the bullpen usage, but the D-backs threw five pitchers on Wednesday — excluding Kelly.

Reliever Reyes Moronta entered for the rookie and let in both runners he inherited, closing Henry’s book with seven earned runs. Philadelphia scored four in the fifth to grow their lead to 9-1.

The Phillies had another barrage in them as they tacked on seven runs on seven hits in the eighth inning. Ten Philadelphia hitters drove in at least one run in the ballgame and none hit a home run.

Jean! Jean! Jean! pic.twitter.com/JRtRSXaPhu

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) September 1, 2022

Offensively, the D-backs scored 25 runs off the Phillies in the first two games of the series but were mainly silenced by southpaw Bailey Falter.

McCarthy’s home run in the fourth was Arizona’s first hit of the game.

Solo homer for Jake McCarthy. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/bm3u3Evg6S

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) September 1, 2022

The D-backs got multiple runners aboard for the first time in the seventh inning, but Christian Walker and Stone Garrett were left on base. They each had two hits, and the D-backs finished with eight.

Their second run scored on a double play hit into by Garrett after Emmanuel Rivera hustled to third on a Walker single in the eighth inning.

“I don’t want us to dwell on this one, we need to spit it out,” Lovullo said. “We’ve been playing good baseball, and these things happen.

“We’ve been on both sides of it this year. We won two out of three from the Phillies. We should enjoy that and we will, but we’ve got to make some subtle adjustments and we’ll get that done.”

UP NEXT

The D-backs open September with a four-game set against the Milwaukee Brewers at Chase Field on Thursday night. Merrill Kelly will take the hill against Brandon Woodruff, and first pitch is at 6:40 p.m.

Tune in on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.

Follow @alexjweiner