'We want this to change': Phillies can't break out of slump in Seattle

SEATTLE – It is stunning it has lasted this long.

But the Phillies keep telling themselves that this will not last forever. Eventually, they believe, they will start winning again.

Friday night, however, they lost 10-2 to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.

The Phils have lost 12 of 16 games for the first time since May 15-31, 2022, which happened to be the final days of Joe Girardi’s managerial career in Philadelphia. He lasted only one more game before Dave Dombrowski replaced him with Rob Thomson.

“Obviously, we want this to change,” Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber said. “We know with the room that we have, it’s going to change. Right? If we knew when, that’d be great.”

Thomson addressed his team before Friday’s game, although he downplayed the significance of it. He said he typically speaks to his players before the advanced meeting preceding every series.

“I thought I gave a pretty good speech before the game, but I guess it wasn’t good enough,” Thomson said, dryly.

Players said Thomson tried to put this stretch into perspective. He mentioned bad stretches the Phillies endured in both 2022 and 2023. He reminded them that they still have one of the best records in baseball and still hold first place in the NL East, although Friday’s loss cut the Phillies’ lead in the NL East to just five games against the Braves.

It is their smallest lead since May 28.

“If he would have told us that we were going to go through it and still be in this position, would you take that in Spring Training?” Schwarber said, referring to being in first place with the best record in the NL. “Absolutely. I think it’s a good way to frame it for us.”

The surprising thing about this recent stretch isn’t that the Phillies have lost 12 out of 16 -- these things do happen to good teams. It’s just that they have lost 12 of 16 after once being on pace to win more than 113 games.

The Phillies streamrolled the competition for months. Now, they can’t seem to buy a win.

Rookie Tyler Phillips was 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA before Friday’s start. He threw a shutout in his last start on Saturday against Cleveland. But Phillips allowed eight runs in just 1 2/3 innings against the Mariners for the first loss of his career.

It was the first time a Phillies starter allowed eight or more runs in fewer than two innings since Jerome Williams allowed eight runs in 1 2/3 innings on Aug. 20, 2015, against the Marlins in Miami.

“If you really want me to answer honestly, I think the thing that bothers me the most is that I let the team down,” Phillips said. “I’ve got all these guys in here relying on me. I’ve got an entire fanbase relying on me to go out there and do my job. I’ve got my family relying on me. And it doesn’t feel very good.”

He is not alone.

“You know what?” Schwarber said. “You can be on this great high, then all of a sudden it can kick you right in the ass. Everyone can get frustrated. Everyone can get [ticked] off or whatever it is. At the end of the day, the emotional roller coaster of riding highs and lows, you’ve got to balance that. In the room, I feel like we’re doing a good job of that. Making sure that we have to stay level-headed and stay focused on what we really need to do.

“Do you think everyone is going home tonight and thinking about the game? Absolutely. We have an expectation for ourselves. That’s the biggest thing. Right?”

Maybe nobody has higher expectations for himself than Bryce Harper. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, and is now in a career-worst 1-for-34 slump.

Asked if he could use a day off, he said no.

“I just want to play,” Harper said. “What are you going to do?”

Trea Turner is batting .157 with a .493 OPS since the All-Star break. He went 0-for-3 before leaving the game in the seventh inning. He said he is not banged up, but Thomson has been getting him off his feet lately.

On Tuesday against the Yankees, Thomson kept Edmundo Sosa on the bench instead of using him as a pinch-runner because he said he needed an extra player in case one of his players needed to come out of the game.

Turner did not start Wednesday, and he did not pinch-run for Schwarber in the ninth inning against the Yankees with the Phillies down a run.

“I was ready for the Wednesday game,” Turner said. “He said he wanted to give me two full off-days. It’s not banged up as much as just trying to get rest when you can. There’s never a good time, especially when you’re in the middle of a tough stretch.”