Phillies look to 'turn the page' on bumpy stretch

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Phillies have lost consecutive games for just the third time this season, and three out of four for the first time since the season’s first four games, leading to the word “adversity” emerging from the postgame clubhouse. Roughly 29 other Major League teams would happily sign up for that level of adversity.

Such are the expectations of a team off to a historically good first third of the season.

“When you play 162 games, you’re likely to lose back-to-back games eventually throughout that stretch,” third baseman Alec Bohm said after the Phillies’ 8-4 loss to the Giants on Monday. “We’re not naive. We know that you’re not just going to flow through a season with no adversity, no struggle, no this or that, everybody’s happy-go-lucky and you just show up and win every day. That’s not how it works.”

At 38-17 the Phillies are still the best team in the Majors, yet even the best teams and players have games worth forgetting. The series opener at Oracle Park was exactly that for Bohm and his mates.

Bohm made his team-leading eighth and ninth errors and could have been charged with his 10th on a ball ruled a double. He also slow-played a throw to first on a Thairo Estrada ground ball, leading to a seventh-inning infield single that sparked a two-run Giants rally that effectively put a 6-4 game out of reach for the Phillies.

The inning also included Bohm’s second error of the game, on a 101.8 mph Matt Chapman grounder, and second baseman Whit Merrifield dropping a Jorge Soler popup to right field that Nick Castellanos probably should have handled. The three Philly errors matched a season high.

Reliever José Ruiz should have been out of the inning long before Heliot Ramos’ turn to bat. Ramos’ two-run, two-out single made the errors hurt.

This loss contrasted with the near-flawless ball the Phillies played during a four-game sweep of the Giants at Citizens Bank Park in early May. Then again, this is Oracle Park, where the Phillies have not won since 2021. They have lost eight in a row here, one of those hard-to-explain happenstances.

While the defense did not help starter Taijuan Walker in his 200th career start, he did not help himself either. His leadoff walks to Chapman and Mike Yastrzemski helped the Giants score three runs in the second and another run in the sixth. Walker also allowed a leadoff infield hit to Luis Matos and a LaMonte Wade Jr. double ahead of Bohm’s first error. Two runs scored to put the Giants ahead, 5-4.

But the focus naturally turned to Bohm, who has made strides defensively after a rough start to his career.

“He’s a good defender,” manager Rob Thomson said. “He’s a lot better than when he first got here. You have one bad day and you’ve got to turn the page and keep going now.”

Bohm might not get a chance to put the errors behind him on the field Tuesday night.

Thomson revealed that Bohm has a couple of “nagging” ailments that might warrant a rest. Bohm declined to elaborate on that, but did embrace the “turn the page” philosophy.

“I’m not going to go panicking and take a bunch of ground balls for no reason,” he said.

“I missed a couple of balls and I didn’t make a play. It’s a hard game. … You play 162 games, there are going to be days when you just straight-up suck. Everybody’s human. Nobody’s immune to it.”

The day was not a total loss for the Phillies, who enjoyed a four-run comeback against Blake Snell after falling behind 3-0. Kyle Schwarber hit a two-run homer, his 10th. Edmundo Sosa electrified the visiting dugout with a triple that led to a run on a wild pitch. And J.T. Realmuto extended his career-best hit streak to 16 games with a first-inning double.

With two outs in the first, Bohm crushed a line drive into left-center field. In a portent to the rest of Bohm’s day, Ramos caught it for the third out.